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Acclaimed writer Bass coming to DPU for spring semester
Rick Bass, described as "one of this country's most intelligent and sensitive short story writers" by the New York Times, will come to DePauw University in the 2015 spring semester as the Mary Rogers Field Distinguished University Professor of Creative Writing.
His duties will include teaching an upper-level creative nonfiction workshop, working with students and taking part in public events on campus.
Bass, who lives in northwest Montana's Yaak Valley, is an award-winning author of more than 30 books.
An endowment gift by J. David Field, DePauw professor emeritus of English, created the professorship in 2007. Appointments to this chair bring nationally recognized and practicing writers to the university as visiting and/or permanent members of the faculty.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, and the son of a geologist, Bass started writing short stories on his lunch breaks while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Miss.
His most recent book, the novel "All the Land to Hold Us," was published last year by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Short stories and essays by Bass have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best Spiritual Writing, Best American Science Writing, Best American Travel Writing and numerous other anthologies.
His books have been nominated for or received The Story Prize, the PEN/Nelson Algren Award for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the John Burroughs Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
He has received fellowships from the national Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lyndhurst Foundation, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.
The Dallas Morning News called him "a true master of the short story," while People magazine noted, "Bass captures quiet human truths amidst his astonishing portraits of life in the wilderness."
Bass has taught creative writing at the University of Montana, the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, Iowa State University, and Beloit College.
Mary Rogers Field, who was the wife of DePauw Professor David Field for 29 years, died in November 2005.