Art Novak resided in the Twin Cities for twenty-seven years. For sixteen of those years, he lived up the street from the place on which he modeled Doglegs Park (the focal point of his novella). The spark that fired his imagination was the camaraderie of the two-leggers and four-leggers frequenting this unofficial dog park.

During his years as a copywriter at ad agencies in Boston, Chicago, and Minneapolis, Art always had a dog at home to help preserve his sanity. The marked contrast between the work and home environments led Art to an epiphany: dogs have it all over human beings. They are more loyal, more consistent, more forgiving, more stoic, more intuitive. He wanted to tell a story that would help others recognize and appreciate the simple dignity of the dog.

The past five years Art has been a professor of advertising, teaching copywriting at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). He and his wife Margie have two grown children and presently live, modestly but comfortably, with two adopted children (a dog and a cat) in Savannah, Georgia.