Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Bill Roorbach is the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including the Flannery O'Connor Prize and O. Henry Prize winner Big Bend; Into Woods; Temple Stream; and the bestselling Life Among Giants. The 10th anniversary edition of his craft book, Writing Life Stories, is used in writing programs around the world. 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.
Life Among Giants was an Editor's Pick for Amazon's Best 2012, a Shelf Awareness Top Ten Best Fiction for 2012, and a winner of the Maine Literary Award for Fiction.
Bill Roorbach's website
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You describe yourself on your Twitter page, as "a good writer with bad habits."
I'm 61-years-old. Nowadays my bad habits are staying up late to write and getting up early to hike. I played rock 'n' roll when I was a young man. I really got used to staying up all night and sleeping all day. And I find, as I put my professor life behind me, that I'm reverting to the rock 'n' roll schedule in some ways. I think it suits me. As I writer, I get to go back and keep playing, to put that missing solo in, and rearrange the notes as I see fit.
I also did a lot of construction work in my youth. When I was younger, I'd feel like, well, if everything goes to hell, I can always go build a house. You know, when you're building, you come back the next day and everything's exactly as you left it – the problems and the triumphs. But with gardening, which I do a lot now, you come back the next week, and everything's changed. I see writing both ways.
Have you ever had a first draft that's very close to what ends up on the printed page?
Certainly parts of everything. There might be a stretch of 10 paragraphs that never get changed. But very often, with my fiction, there's ...
Joshua Henkin is the author of the novels Matrimony, a New York Times Notable Book, and Swimming Across the Hudson, a Los Angeles Times Notable Book and The World Without You,... (more)
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Cara Hoffman is the author of the critically acclaimed novel So Much Pretty. She teaches writing and literature at Bronx Community College and lives in New York City. (more)
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