Born and raised on an Iowa farm, Dennis Hathaway has worked as a newspaper reporter, construction worker and building contractor.  He was director of low-income housing rehabilitation for a non-profit housing corporation and staff member of a job training and education program for at-risk youth.  He was an active member of community groups dealing with issues of affordable housing and homelessness, and served eight years as president of a Los Angeles nonprofit organization fighting outdoor advertising and visual blight.

His nonfiction has been published in the Los Angeles Times and CityWatch, an online public affairs magazine.  His fiction has been published in print and online journals, including TriQuarterly, Georgia Review, and Southwest Review, and his story collection, The Consequences of Desire, won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction.  He was the publisher and editor of Crania, one of the earliest online literary magazines, and his volume of poetry, The Taste of Flesh, was published by Crania Press.  

He lives with his wife, artist Laura Silagi, in Venice, California