Bill Roorbach


Location Maine
Occupation writer
Website http://billroorbach.com

About Me

BILL ROORBACH writes both fiction and nonfiction, including the Flannery O'Connor Prize and O. Henry Prize winner Big Bend and Maine Prize winner Temple Stream, for which he also received a Kaplan Foundation and MacDowell fellowships. Bill is an NEA fellow, as well, for work on his novel The Smallest Color. The 10th anniversary edition of his craft book Writing Life Stories is used in writing programs and studios around the world. Recently, Bill was a judge on Food Network All Star Challenge, evaluating incredible Life Stories cakes made under the gun, so to speak. (Bill knows nothing about cake, but he knows a lot about life stories.) His work has been published in Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, New York, and dozens of other magazines and journals. His story "Big Bend" was featured on NPR's "Selected Shorts," read by actor James Cromwell at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Bill has taught at the University of Maine at Farmington, Colby College, and Ohio State. His last academic position was the Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. He has now quit academia in order to write full time, and lives with his family and many animals in western Maine. An ongoing comic video memoir about his tragic music career, "I Used to Play in Bands," and all kinds of other work, including a current blog on writers and writing and just about everything else (with author David Gessner), is online at www.billanddavescocktailhour.com. Visit Bill at www.billroorbach.com.

Why do you write?

I write because I can't seem to help it.

Any favorite authors? Books?

Long list. Alice Munro. Philip Roth. Joan Didion. Ian Frazier. More to come!

Bill Roorbach's Wall

Robert Vaughan – Oct 26, 2011

Welcome, Bill, glad you are here!

Bill Roorbach – Oct 26, 2011

Thanks for the welcome--I'm glad to be here...

Darryl Price – Oct 25, 2011

Excellent to have you with us.

Joani Reese – Oct 25, 2011

Welcome Bill. I look forward to reading your work.

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