William B. Patrick

Bio

Publicist: Carmel Scalese, same address and telephone, carmels@worldnet.att.net – Born in Troy, New York, William B. Patrick has worked in many genres, including poetry, fiction, stage plays, screenplays, and non-fiction. His most recent book, We Didn’t Come Here For This (BOA Editions, 1999), is a memoir in poetry. BOA published his last book of poetry, These Upraised Hands, in 1995. Roxa: Voices of the Culver Family (BOA, 1989), a novel in prose and poetry, won the 1990 Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award for the best first book of fiction. Letter to the Ghosts, Patrick’s first book of poems (Ithaca House, 1977), was a finalist for the Elliston Award. Mr. Patrick spent eighteen months riding with professional firefighters and paramedics in Troy, experiences which culminated in his most recent screenplay, “Fire Ground,” as well as a radio play, “Rescue,” that was commissioned by the BBC and aired world-wide in 1997, and “Saving Troy,” a nonfiction work in progress. He is also the author of a teleplay,”Rachel’s Dinner,” which starred Olympia Dukakis and Peter Gerety, and aired nationally on ABC-TV in 1991. Mr. Patrick has taught creative writing for The New York State Writers’ Institute at the State University of New York at Albany, at Old Dominion University, and at Salem State College, among others, and is currently working in arts-in-education for The Writer’s Voice in Silver Bay, New York, and for Alternative Literary Programs (ALPS). He has received grants from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and, most recently, The New York Foundation for the Arts, to finish “Saving Troy.”