Richard Bausch
Photo by Karen Bausch

Richard Bausch was one of twin boys born in Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1945 (his twin brother, Robert, is also a novelist). When he was three, his family moved to the Washington, D.C. suburbs. He and Robert served in the U.S. Air Force between 1966-1969, after which Richard roamed the Midwest and South playing guitar and singing in a rock band, and writing poetry. He went on to receive a B.A. from George Mason University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Iowa. Bausch is the author of nine novels and five collections of short stories, including Take Me Back (1981), which was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award; The Last Good Time (1984); Mr. Field’s Daughter (1989); Violence (1992); The Selected Stories of Richard Bausch (1996); and In the Night Season (1998). His short stories have appeared in numerous prize-winning anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, O. Henry, and Pushcart. He has received several awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award, and the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Professor of English and Heritage Chair of Creative Writing at George Mason University.

He left a pause. He might have been considering telling her everything about himself. Then he said, "Like most military people, I hate war. But there are tigers in the world, you know."

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