Richard Ford is an American novelist and short story writer whose teaching career is as prolific as his literary career. He started his literary journey by becoming a fiction writer but his initial books failed to receive much attention, which is why Ford decided to opt for sports journalism instead. But as fate would have it, the magazine he worked for ran out of business and he had to again take up to fiction writing. But this time his books were noticed as he struck a chord with the literary world with his novel ‘The Sportswriter’ and collection of short stories called ‘Rock Springs’. Most of his stories are based in Montana, a state that he familiarizes himself with. He is famous for the ‘Frank Bascombe’ character series like—‘The Sportswriter’, ‘Independence Day’ and ‘The Lay of the Land’. Ford has served as an Adjunct Professor at the Oscar Wilde Centre with the School of English at Trinity College, Dublin, senior fiction professor at the University of Mississippi and is currently the Emmanuel Roman and Barrie Sardoff Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Writing at the Columbia University School of the Arts. He has won many prestigious literary awards like, Pulitzer Prize, PEN/Faulkner Award, PEN/Malamud Award, etc.
