Ken Malatesta is a teacher and writer from Chicago. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife and three sons. His work has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, The Hopper, The Compressed Journal for Creative Arts, Fatherly, Goat's Milk Magazine, and Motherwell Magazine. His essay "Puzzling Toward Oblivion" was named a Notable Essay of the Year by Best American Essays 2023.