Kent Haruf was born on February 24, 1943 in Pueblo, Colorado, USA. He was a writer, known for Our Souls at Night (2017), Private Debts (1989) and Plainsong (2004). He was married to Catherine Shattuck Dempsey and Virginia K. Koon. He died on November 30, 2014 in Salida, Colorado, USA.
He wrote several novels that take place in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado, a composite of towns where he lived in childhood.
In 1965, he went to Turkey as a Peace Corps volunteer. He received conscientious-objector status during the Vietnam War, and worked in a hospital and an orphanage as part of his alternative service.
He taught high-school English in Colorado and Wisconsin, before being hired as an assistant professor at Nebraska Wesleyan. He also taught at Southern Illinois University.