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Bill Roorbach
Born	William Roorbach (1953-08-08)August 8, 1953 (age 71) Chicago,Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist short story writer memoirist nature writer journalist blogger critic
Education	Ithaca College (BA) Columbia University
Notable works	Big Bend Life Among Giants

William Roorbach (born August 8, 1953) is an American novelist, short story and nature writer, memoirist, journalist, blogger and critic. He has authored fiction and nonfiction works includingBig Bend, which won theFlannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction^[1] and theO. Henry Prize.^[2] Roorbach's memoir in nature,Temple Stream, won the Maine Literary Award for Nonfiction, 2005. His novel,Life Among Giants, won the 2013 Maine Literary Award for Fiction.^[18][3] AndThe Remedy for Love, also a novel, was one of six finalists for the 2014 Kirkus Fiction Prize.^[4] His book,The Girl of the Lake, is a short story collection published in June 2017.^[5] His most recent novel isLucky Turtle, published in 2022.^[6]

Bill Roorbach was born in 1953 inChicago,Illinois. The next year, his family moved to suburbanBoston, Massachusetts, where he attended kindergarten. In 1959 the family moved toNew Canaan,Connecticut, where he attended public schools from first grade on, graduating fromNew Canaan High School in 1971. In 1976, he was graduated fromIthaca College cum laude with a B.A. in Individual and Interdisciplinary Studies.

During what he has called his "writing apprenticeship,"^[7] Roorbach traveled and worked a series of different jobs. He played piano and sang in a succession of bands, bartended, worked briefly on a cattle ranch, and worked extensively as a carpenter, plumber, and handyman. In January, 1987, he enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts Writing Program of theColumbia University Graduate School of the Arts, where he was awarded a School of the Arts Fellowship, a Fellowship of Distinction and an English Department teaching assistantship. In addition, he was a fiction editor of "Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Prose." He was graduated in May 1990.

Roorbach and his wife, painter Juliet Karelsen,^[8] have one daughter.

Roorbach taught at theUniversity of Maine at Farmington from 1991 to 1995^[9] and subsequently at theOhio State University from 1995 to 2001, winning tenure in 1998.^[9] In 2001, he quit his tenured position and returned with his family to Maine where he taught odd semesters as visiting full professor atColby College. He wrote full-time until Fall, 2004, when he was awarded the William H.P. Jenks Chair of Contemporary American Letters at theCollege of the Holy Cross inWorcester, Massachusetts, a five-year position as full professor.^[10] He commuted from Maine to Worcester until April, 2009, when he returned to full-time writing.^[11] In the winter of 2019 Roorbach returned to teaching as a faculty member of the Newport MFA in creative writing at Salve Regina College.^[12]

Roorbach sold his first book.Summers with Juliet, to Houghton Mifflin shortly after graduating from Columbia.^[13] In 1998, he publishedWriting Life Stories. During the interim, he published short work, both fiction and nonfiction, in a number of magazines and journals, includingThe New York Times Magazine,^[14]The Atlantic Monthly,Harper's Magazine,^[15]Playboy,The Missouri Review,^[16] andGranta, .^[17] His first novel,The Smallest Color,^[18] a collection of stories,Big Bend, and a collection of essays,Into Woods, written incrementally during the preceding decade, were published in a flurry in 2000 and 2001.Big Bend was featured on the NPR programSelected Shorts, performed by the actor James Cromwell.^[19]Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth, a widely adopted anthology, was published in 2002 by Oxford University Press. In 2004,A Place on Water, which Bill wrote with poet Wesley McNair and essayist Robert Kimber was published by Tilbury House, a craft publisher in Maine. In 2005, the Dial Press (RandomHouse) published Bill's bookTemple Stream: A Rural Odyssey,^[20] which was based on Bill's article of the same name inHarper's Magazine and won the Maine Literary Award in 2005. Roorbach's novel,Life Among Giants, won the 2013 Maine Literary Award for Fiction.^[18][3] AndThe Remedy for Love, also a novel, was one of six finalists for the 2014 Kirkus Fiction Prize..^[4] His book,The Girl of the Lake, is a short story collection published in June 2017.^[5] His novel,Lucky Turtle, was published in 2022.^[6]

• 2018Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow, Umbria
• 2014Kirkus Prize FinalistArchived 2017-07-12 at theWayback Machine
• 2013Maine Literary Award for Fiction
• 2006Maine Prize for Literary Nonfiction
• 2004-2009William H.P. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters, College of the Holy Cross
• 2004Kaplan Foundation Fellow
• 2002O. Henry Prize
• 2001Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
• 1999National Endowment for the Arts Fellow

• The Smallest Color: A Novel. Counterpoint Press. 2001.ISBN 978-1-58243-252-6.Bill Roorbach. (paperback 2003)
• Life Among Giants. Algonquin. 2012.ISBN 978-1-61620-076-3.
• The Remedy for Love. Algonquin. 2014.ISBN 978-1-61620-478-5.
• Lucky Turtle. Algonquin. 2022.ISBN 978-1-64375-390-4.

• Summers with Juliet. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 1992.ISBN 978-0-3955-7323-5.editions:FCCEYCrdOpMC. (paperback: Ohio State University Press, 2000)
• Writing Life Stories: How to Make Memories into Memoirs, Ideas into Essays, and Life into Literature. Writer's Digest Books. 2000.ISBN 978-1-884910-47-0.
• Into Woods: Essays. University of Notre Dame Press. 2002.ISBN 978-0-268-03162-6.(Reissue in Paperback: Down East Books, 2015)
• A Place on Water. Tilbury House. 2004.ISBN 978-0-884-48262-8.(Paperback: Down East Books, 2015)
• Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey. Dial Press. 2005.ISBN 978-0-385-33654-3.(Reissued by Downeast Books, 2014)

• Big Bend: Short Stories. University of Georgia Press. 2001.ISBN 978-1-58243-257-1. (paperback: Counterpoint Press, 2003 )
• The Girl of the Lake. Algonquin. 2017.ISBN 978-1-61620-332-0.

• "Harbinger Hall" published inThe Atlantic, December 2004; also included inThe Girl of the Lake^[21]
• Kiva—First appeared under the title "Investigation" inIron Horse.
• "The Fall"
• "Murder Cottage"—Originally published in the short story collection,The Girl of The LakeThe Girl of the Lake. Algonquin. 2017.ISBN 978-1-61620-332-0..
• "Princesa"—First appeared in theMissouri Review.
• "Broadax, Inc."—First appeared inEcotone.
• "The Tragedie of King Lear"—Originally published in the short story collection,The Girl of The LakeThe Girl of the Lake. Algonquin. 2017.ISBN 978-1-61620-332-0..
• "Some Should"
• "Dung Beetle"
• "The Girl of the Lake"—First appeared inEcotone.

• Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth. Oxford University Press. 2001.ISBN 978-0-195-13556-5.

• Where the Hat Is. Decor Maine. 2018.

• Secret Passages "NY Times Book Review of Life Among Giants by Bill Roorbach",NY Times, February 22, 2013]
• Bob Edwards - Bill Roorbach "Bob Edwards Interviews Bill Roorbach about Life Among Giants"]

• "Author's website"

• 1953 births
• Novelists from Chicago
• People from New Canaan, Connecticut
• 21st-century American novelists
• American male novelists
• Ithaca College alumni
• Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
• University of Maine at Farmington faculty
• Ohio State University faculty
• Living people
• American male short story writers
• 21st-century American short story writers
• 21st-century American male writers
• Novelists from Ohio
• Novelists from Maine

• Autobiographical articles from May 2024
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