GEORGE HERMAN has played many roles in his long career, including published poet and short- story writer, professional actor and director, theater critic and columnist, university professor, and award- winning playwright. His play, Pious Nine Is Falling Down, was awarded second place in the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild's Julie Harris Playwright Competition. Another play about a run-down troupe of commedia dell'arte actors, A Company of Wayward Saints, won the McKnight Foundation Humanities Award, and was published by Samuel French. In Carnival of Saints, his first novel, he has returned to the Italy of the Renaissance and to his nine favorite actors. George Herman lives in Portland, Oregon.