Short Bio
Rick Wilber is an award-winning writer, editor and college professor with a half-dozen novels published or under contract, sixty short stories in print or under contract, 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, several short-story collections, several college textbooks on writing and the mass media, a memoir about caregiving and his father’s life in baseball, and sixty 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. 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. He is the father of a Down syndrome son and often incorporates the disabled in his 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 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 sixty 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, 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 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. His short fiction has often been reprinted in magazines and anthologies.
Alien Morning (Tor, 2016) is based on his long-running S’hudonni Empire series of stories, featuring a jovial but deadly alien named Twoclicks, his shape-changing sidekick, and an all-too-human journalist from Earth, Peter Holman, a one-time professional athlete turned celebrity journo who goes to work for the S’hudonni as their media interface with Earth. The novel was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2017. The sequel, Alien Day (Tor Books), came out in June 2021, also from Tor Books. The third novel in the trilogy, untitled as yet, is a work in progress.
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 most recent short fiction is the novella, “Blimpies,” in the March/April 2022 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, 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 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 a 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 Down syndrome son and often incorporates Down syndrome characters into his fiction, as well.
Wilber is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Western State Colorado University, where he teaches in the Genre Writing area of the low-residency Creative Writing MFA/MA program. A longtime professor of journalism and 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 at the Conference on the Fantastic in Orlando, Florida.
Wilber lives in the St. Petersburg, Florida area of 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. 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 years. He is married to Robin Wilber, a finance professor at St. Petersburg College, and they have two adult children.
