 Brockmeier, who was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a graduate of Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School (1991) and Southwest Missouri State University (1995).He taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received his MFA in 1997, and lives in Little Rock.Brockmeier has won three O. Henry Prizes, the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction, Italo Calvino Short Fiction Award and several and the Booker Worthen Literary Prize and the Porter Fund Literary Prize.