“You know that thing people say, 'poetry is the hardest, stories are the second hardest, novels are the easiest?' I'm here to tell you that novels are the hardest. Writing a novel is unbelievably difficult. It's nightmarish.”

American author, educator, and physician

Ethan Andrew Canin is an American author, educator, and physician. He is a faculty member at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He is known for work that bridges medicine and literature, and for his role in teaching writers at one of the best known graduate programs in the United States. The available facts place him as both a practicing physician and a working writer, with his career grounded in writing and instruction rather than a single public role.