Alistair MacLeod, OC (born July 20, 1936 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan) is a noted Canadian author and retired professor of English at the University of Windsor. When MacLeod was ten his family moved to a farm in Dunvegan, Inverness County on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island. After completing high school, MacLeod attended the Nova Scotia Teachers College and then taught public school. He studied at St. Francis Xavier University between 1957 and 1960 and graduated with a BA and BEd. He then went on to receive his MA in 1961 from the University of New Brunswick and his PhD in 1968 from the University of Notre Dame. A specialist in British literature of the nineteenth century, MacLeod taught English for three years at Indiana University before accepting a post in 1969 at the University of Windsor as professor of English and creative writing. During the summer, his family resides near Inverness on Cape Breton Island, where he spends part of his time "writing in a cliff-top cabin looking west towards Prince Edward Island." MacLeod's published works include the 1976 short story collection The Lost Salt Gift of Blood and the 1986 As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories.