Wonders of the Little World

Writer and teacher Bill Meissner is the author of twelve books, including four books of short stories and five books of poems. His novels are Summer of Rain, Summer of Fire, and Spirits in the Grass, which won the Midwest Book Award.He taught creative writing at St. Cloud State University, and now acts as an occasional writing coach and presents readings and creative writing workshops at area colleges, high schools, elementary schools, and book clubs. He has won numerous awards for his writing, including a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, A Loft McKnight Award, a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction in Fiction, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, and several PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Awards for his short stories (one of which was selected by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.).Meissner grew up in Baraboo, Wisconsin, also known as “The Circus City”—the birthplace of the Ringling brothers and their first circus. As a teenager, he worked in the Circus World Museum, vending peanuts, cotton candy, and snow-cones to museum visitors. His boyhood home was located a block from the county fairgrounds, and once, as a ten-year-old, he rode the Rock-O-Planes nineteen times in one day.Bill’s interests include rock music, photography, baseball, vintage typewriters, and travel—especially to tropical/beach locations such as Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He lives in Minnesota with his wife, Chris.