Born in South Korea to a German father and a Korean mother, Heinz Insu Fenkl grew up in Korea until he was twelve, and then in Germany and the U.S. A professor of English at SUNY New Paltz, where he teaches creative writing, Asian and Asian American literature, and film, he is also a folklorist, who has edited anthologies of Korean folklore and translated seminal folktales and Buddhist texts; and from its inception until 2017 he was a member of the editorial board for Harvard University's Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture.  A section of Skull Water appeared in The New Yorker. Fenkl lives in New York's Hudson Valley.