Biography
Robert J. Begiebing is the author of many articles and stories and ten books, including fiction, criticism,
memoir, and collected journalism. His novels represent a historical tetralogy spanning the 1630s to the
late 1800s. His first novel in the series, The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin, was chosen as a "Main
Selection" for the Mystery and Literary Guild Book Clubs. The second novel in the series, Rebecca
Wentworth's Distraction, won the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction. All four novels were widely and
positively reviewed, including in The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement
(London), The Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. His fiction writing has been
supported by grants from the New Hampshire Council for the Arts and the Lila Wallace Fund.
Begiebing is Professor of English Emeritus at Southern New Hampshire University, where he won three
awards for excellence in teaching and was the founding director of the MFA in Fiction and Nonfiction
from 2006-2011. His critical books include two studies of Norman Mailer, an analysis of modern
American and British novelists, and a critical anthology of nature writing in the British and American
traditions.
In 2007 Governor John Lynch appointed Begiebing to the New Hampshire Council for the Arts. He also
served as an inaugural faculty member for the Norman Mailer Writers Workshops in Provincetown,
Massachusetts. He is currently on the board of the Norman Mailer Society and the editorial board of
The Mailer Review.