Warren Fine, Literature Papers

Warren Fine was born January 24, 1943 in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Growing up in southwest Kansas, he began writing stories and selling them for a penny apiece when he was eight years old. From his teen years onward, Fine considered writing his vocation. In 1965 he left the University of Kansas to finish his first novel, The Artificial Traveler. He moved to St. Louis in 1966 and remained there until 1968. He received his master's degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1970.

Fine's career included teaching as well as writing in various formats. He taught in the English department at the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee, from 1970-1974 and the following year at Colorado State before joining the University of Nebraska--Lincoln's faculty in 1976. At UNL he taught fiction writing and contemporary literature and administered the graduate writing program. His work as a writer included four published novels, more than 40 published poems, six published essays, and scripts for plays, film, and television. The plains and prairies of his childhood home in Kansas frequently served as the settings of his stories, and his writing recreated the language of oral storytelling. In a Lincoln Star article from April 22, 1979, Fine referred to himself as "the foremost unpopular American novelist." He died August 20, 1987 in Lincoln, Nebraska.