Ben Fountain

Ben Fountain is the author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Natinal Book Award, in addition to being made into a feature film directed by Ang Lee. Fountain's short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, was a national bestseller and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Award for Fiction. Fountain graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University School of Law. A former practicing attorney, Fountain has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, and recently completed a two-year appointment as university chair in creative writing at Texas State University