Bibliography Selection Commentary Interview Buy a Book Writers On-Line

RON HANSEN is the author, most recently, of the novel Isn't It Romantic? (HarperCollins, 2003) and a book of essays called A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction (HarperCollins, 2001). Among his other books are Desperadoes (Knopf), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Knopf), Nebraska (Atlantic Monthly Press), Mariette in Ecstasy (HarperCollins), Atticus (HarperCollins), and a children's book, The Shadowmaker (Trophy Press). A native of Omaha, he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for Nebraska, a collection of short fiction. According to Contemporary Novelists, Hansen's books "occupy ... a curious half-way house between popular and high culture; between the worlds of art and entertainment." A book by Hansen provides a good read as well as a searching study of morality. In an article in Publishers Weekly, Hansen said, For me, the process of writing is the joy of writing. It's the putting down individual sentences, making them fit together, making the story interesting. Once you've completed a book, you realize how ramshackle a thing writing a novel is. You've somehow made it seem like it was always coherent. That's the satisfying aspect of writing, the really affirming thing about it. He is Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University. His novel Atticus was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1996.