ichael Quadland grew up in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He graduated from Dartmouth College and received a Master of Public Health degree from Yale University and a PhD in psychology from New York University. In addition to his private psychotherapy practice, he taught human sexuality at Mt Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, supervised a sex information hotline in Manhattan and consulted with many organizations about AIDS prevention and the emotional-psychological aspects of the disease. He was a founder of Gay Mens Health Crisis, the world's largest AIDS organization, and has published many articles in professional journals regarding AIDS and sexuality. The Los Angeles Times published his nonfiction article, A RED X, about the death of a friend.

Quadland left AIDS work in 1995, reduced the size of his psychotherapy practice and restored an eighteenth century farmhouse in Connecticut—doing much of the work himself. He also turned to writing fiction. He now divides his time between New York City and northwest Connecticut.

THAT WAS THEN is his first novel.