About Bill Meissner              Published Books and Writing Samples            Courses              Student Groups and Activities             Contact

               

Bill Meissner, Director of Creative Writing at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota, is author of seven books. His books of poetry are American Compass [Univ. of Notre Dame Press], Twin Sons Of Different Mirrors [Milkweed Editions], The Sleepwalker's Son [Ohio Univ. Press] and Learning To Breathe Underwater [Ohio Univ. Press]. He is also author of two books of short stories, Hitting Into The Wind [Random House Hardcover] which is available in paperback from Southern Methodist University Press, and The Road to Cosmos [University of Notre Dame Press, November 2006].  Most recently, Bill authored the full length novel Spirits in the Grass [University of Notre Dame Press, September 2008].

His writing has appeared in more than 200 journals, magazines and anthologies. Bill's numerous awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Loft-McKnight Award in Poetry, a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction in Fiction, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a Jerome Foundation Fellowship, and five PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Awards.

Bill's hobbies and interests include travel [in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, and Quebec and Europe], rock & roll music, sports [especially baseball, football, Frisbee, and snorkeling]. He has collections of manual typewriters, vintage records, baseball memorabilia, and vintage pulp fiction magazines/novels. Each spring, he organizes an informal group of slow-pitch baseball players called The Catch and Release Baseball Club.

Bill lives with his wife Christine, who teaches 5th grade at Albany Elementary School.  Their son, Nate, is a graduate student in archeology.

Contact Bill Meissner at wjmeissner@stcloudstate.edu.
 

                                                                                                                                 "A storyteller with remarkable gifts."     - Kurt Vonnegut

This webpage was created by Daniel S. Shub February, 2005;
last revised March 2009 by Jon P. Shadden. Photo by Ashley Yantes.