William J. Cobb is a novelist, essayist, and short fiction writer whose work has been published in The New Yorker, The Mississippi Review, The Antioch Review, and many others. He’s the author of two novels—The Fire Eaters (W.W. Norton 1994) and Goodnight, Texas (Unbridled 2006)—and a book of stories, The White Tattoo (Ohio State UP 2002). He reviews books for the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, and the New York Times. He directs the MFA program at Penn State, lives in Pennsylvania and Colorado, and may be contacted at wjcobb@gmail.com.
The masthead image is of two-year-old Lili Cobb on the porch of a house in the desert of West Texas, near Terlingua.
September 26th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Thanks so much for the kind words, Hilary! It’s been forever, hasn’t it? Back in the day I lived in Kerrville and worked at The Yellow Ribbon restaurant, which I imagine isn’t there anymore, but spent most of my time at Marla’s in Comfort, Texas. Yes, the Tea Party hoopla & idiocy has me worked up, in that it sometimes seems the Brainless are trying to take over the government. I’m contributing here and there to campaigns, but only in small increments, and of course will vote, and try to fight for sanity. Pennsylvania probably seems more liberal at the moment than the Texas Hill Country, but I’d say both are probably about the same in the long run, only Penn State (which is like U.T.) is in a small town, and influences it greatly, as opposed to U.T., in the city setting of Austin. If you’re ever in State College, I’ll take you to dinner. We have a nice home here and split time between here and a small mountain town in Colorado, which we adore. Best Wishes, Bill