Short Bio
Rick Wilber is an award-winning writer, editor and college professor with a half-dozen novels and short-story collections published or under contract, more than seventy short stories in print or under contract, two dozen poems, five edited anthologies, and five college textbooks on writing and the mass media in print or under contract. He is on the faculty of Western Colorado University’s low-residency MFA/MA in Creative Writing, where he teaches and is Thesis Coordinator in the Genre Fiction program. He is co-founder and director of the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. He is co-founder and co-judge for the award with Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.
Longer Bio
Rick Wilber has published a half-dozen novels and short-story collections, several college textbooks on writing and the mass media, a memoir about caregiving and his father’s life in baseball, two dozen poems, and seventy short stories in major markets, including the Sidewise Award winning “Something Real,” and the poignant “Today is Today,” reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019 (Prime Books, 2019) edited by Rich Horton. Both stories and seven more tales of determination are in the collection, Rambunctious: Nine Tales of Determination (WordFire, March 2020). Another WordFire collection, The Wandering Warriors, came out in July 2020. The collection is a collaboration with writer and physicist Alan Smale and includes a bonus story from each author.
Wilber is the editor of several reprint anthologies, including Field of Fantasies: Baseball Stories of the Strange and Supernatural (Nightshade, 2014), Future Media (Tachyon, 2011), and Making History: Classic Alternate History Stories (New Word City, 2018).
Wilber’s novel, Alien Morning (Tor, 2016), was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2017. His novelette, “Something Real” (Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, April 2012), won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History-Short form, his novella, “The Secret City” (Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, September/October 2018) was runner-up for that same award, and his novelette, “The Hind,” co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson (Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, November/December 2018) won the Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine Readers Award for best novelette of 2018 and in 2023 won the Canopus Award for Excellence in Published Short Form Fiction. His short fiction has often been reprinted in magazines and anthologies.
The son of a major-league baseball player and coach, and a three-sport college scholarship athlete himself, Wilber often incorporates sports into his fiction and non-fiction. His is the father of a son with Down syndrome and often incorporates Down syndrome characters into his fiction and non-fiction, as well.
He is a Visiting Professor and Thesis Coordinator in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing-Genre Fiction at Western Colorado University, and he is the co-founder and co-judge with Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine Editor Sheila Williams of the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, awarded annually since 1994 at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida.
Longest Bio
Rick Wilber is an award-winning writer, editor, and college professor who has published a half-dozen novels and short-story collections, several college textbooks on writing and the mass media, a memoir about caregiving for his parents, and about seventy short stories, many of them in major markets, most often Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. The published stories include the Sidewise Award winning “Something Real,” and the poignant “Today is Today,” reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019 (Prime Books, 2019) edited by Rich Horton. Both stories and seven more tales of determination are in the collection Rambunctious: Nine Tales of Determination (WordFire, 2020). Included in the collection is the Sidewise Award-winning “Something Real,” about a fictional version of famous World War II spy and baseball player Moe Berg, as well as the stories, “Several Items of Interest,” and “Today is Today,” that were reprinted in best-of-the-year anthologies. Locus magazine reviewer Paul Di Filippo said of the collection that “Wilber’s fiction...is rich with sensory specificity, historical verisimilitude, deep psychological kennings, compassion, and plain old joie de vivre. While honoring the stern realities of science—and science fiction—he is also not afraid to exhibit an intuitive, mythic sense of life’s mysteries.... I’d say he’s one of Fantastika’s All-Stars.” Critic Gary Wolfe of the same publication said of the collection, “Wilber is at his best with families, and the balance between a life of comfortable mediocrity and the chance to do “something real”—as Moe Berg puts it—seems to haunt his fiction and gives it a distinct and memorable, if at times almost elegiac, sensibility.”
Another WordFire collection, The Wandering Warriors (WordFire 2020), came out in July 2020. The collection is a collaboration with writer and astrophysicist Alan Smale and includes two bonus stories, one from each author. Publishers Weekly said, “The tales are united in their whimsy and grit, making this a rousing series of adventures.” Alexander Wallace said on the Sea Lion Press blog, that “The Wandering Warriors is a lean, fun little book, melding time travel and alternate history and sports in a way that rivals Harry Turtledove. I recommend it wholeheartedly.”
Wilber’s novel, Alien Morning (Tor, 2016), was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2017. His novelette, “Something Real” (Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, April 2012), won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History-Short form, his novella, “The Secret City” (Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, September/October 2018) was runner-up for that same award and the novella, “Billie the Kid,” was a finalst for that same award in 2022. His novelette, “The Hind,” co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson (Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, November/December 2018) won the Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine Readers’ Award for best novelette of 2018 and the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Writing Fiction in the Published Short-Form Fiction category in 2023. His short fiction has often been reprinted in magazines and anthologies. In 2023, he was a double nominee for the Asimov’s Readers’ Award in the novella category for the novellas, “Blimpies,” and “The Goose.”
Wilber is the editor of several reprint anthologies, including Field of Fantasies: Baseball Stories of the Strange and Supernatural (Nightshade, 2014), Future Media (Tachyon, 2011), and Making History: Classic Alternate History Stories (New Word City, 2018) among others.
Wilber’s most recent college textbook is the introductory text, Media Matters (Kendall Hunt 2018). A much revised second edition is now in progress. The book introduces students to the societal impact, job opportunities, business structure, history and possible futures of books, newspapers and magazines, sound recording, film, television, public relations, advertising, mass media research, free speech issues, social media, and more.
Wilber’s previous college textbooks include Magazine Feature Writing (St. Martin’s Press, 1994), Modern Media Writing (Cengage Learning, 2002) with Randy Miller, and The Writer’s Handbook for Editing and Revision (NTC, 1996).
Among Wilber’s short fiction is the novella “The Death of the Hind,” co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson and forthcoming in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine in 2023, “The Storyteller,” forthcoming in 2023 in the anthology, Merciless Mermaids (WordFire Press, 2023), “To the Mean,” in the February 2023 Sunday Morning Transport, “The Greeter” forthcoming in Asimov’s Science fiction magazine in 2023, “The Goose” in the July/August 2022 Asimov’s,” “Blimpies,” in the March/April 2022 Asimov’s, the novella, “Billie the Kid,” in the September/October 2021 issue of Asimov’s, the novelette “Tin Man,” in the May/June 2021 issue of Asimov’s, co-authored by Wilber and writer/physician Brad Aiken, and the novelette, “The Hind,” co-authored by Wilber and best-selling novelist Kevin J. Anderson, which appeared in the November/December 2020 issue of Asimov’s and won the Readers Award as best novelette of the year in that magazine. The novelette, “Ithaca,” appeared in Asimov’s May/June 2020 issue, also co-authored with Brad Aiken. The short story, “False Bay,” appeared in the anthology Monsters, Movies & Mayhem (WordFire Press, 2020) and has been reprinted in Black Cat magazine. The short story, “Donny Boy,” appeared in the anthology Alternate Peace (ZNB, edited by Steven Silver, 2019).
Wilber’s 2018 story in Asimov’s Science Fiction, “The Secret City,” was runner-up for the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History-Short Form. This story was the fourth in an ongoing series of alternate-history stories about famous World War II baseball player and spy, Moe Berg. The fifth story in the series, “Billie the Kid,” appeared in the September/October 2021 issue of Asimov’s. A sixth story in the series, the novella, “The Goose,” appeared in the July/August 2022 issue of Asimov’s.
Wilber is notable as an award-winning and prolific writer in the field of baseball fantasy, with some two dozen baseball-influenced stories published in magazines and anthologies like Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine Fantasy & Science Fiction, Elysian Fields Quarterly, Spitball, and elsewhere. He is the editor of the anthology Field of Fantasies: Baseball Stories of the Strange and Supernatural (Night Shade/Skyhorse, 2014), featuring nearly two dozen classic baseball fantasy stories by writers ranging from Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan to Karen Joy Fowler, Jack Kerouac, Rod Serling, John Kessel, Harry Turtledove, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Robert Coover, Kim Stanley Robinson, Louise Marley, Ron Carlson, W.P. Kinsella, and many others. Other baseball-themed work includes the baseball mystery novel, Rum Point (McFarland, 2009) and the memoir, My Father’s Game: Life, Death, Baseball (McFarland, 2007) about the caregiving role and about his father’s career in baseball. Broad Street Review said the memoir is a book “about the mythology of baseball...written with fine observation and wry understatement, and [it] may well become a classic in the literature.” The Coode Street podcast called Wilber “Science fiction’s dean of baseball stories.”
The son of a major-league baseball player and coach, and a three-sport college scholarship athlete himself, Wilber often incorporates sports into his fiction. He is the father of a adult son with Down syndrome and often incorporates characters with Down syndrome into his fiction and non-fiction. In October of 2022, the Sunday Los Angeles Times published Wilber’s essay about, “What My Son With Down Syndrome Taught Me About Baseball—and Life,” online and on the front page of the Sunday print edition of the Times.
Wilber is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Western Colorado University, where he teaches in the Genre Writing program of the low-residency Graduate Program in Creative Writing. He is administrator and co-founder with Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, of the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, awarded annually since 1994 at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA) in Orlando, Florida.
Wilber lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, on the West Coast of Florida and that area’s barrier islands have often figured into his stories and novels. Rum Point, Alien Morning, and Alien Day all have significant scenes set in that area as do a number of his short stories. Important parts of the Alien Morning and Alien Day also take place in Ireland, where Rick and his wife led college students on for-credit study tours every summer for more than twenty-five years. He is married to Robin Wilber, a finance professor at St. Petersburg College, and they have two adult children.
