David Allan Cates is the author of three novels, Hunger in America, a New York Times Notable Book, X Out of Wonderland, and Freeman Walker, both Montana Book Award Honor Books.  Cates is the winner of the 2010 Montana Arts Council's Artist Innovation Award in prose and his short story, "Rubber Boy," (Glimmer Train 70) is a a distinguished story in the 2010 Best American Short Stories. His stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, and his travel articles in Outside Magazine and the New York Times Sophisticated Traveler.

Cates is the executive director of Missoula Medical Aid, which leads groups of medical professionals to provide public health and surgery services in Honduras.  In Missoula he works with the Missoula Writing Collaborative, teaching classes on the short shory in public high schools, and is a part-time faculty in Pacific Lutheran University's low-residency MFA program.  For many years he worked as a fishing guide on the Smith River and raised cattle on his family's farm in Wisconsin.