Scott Sanders (American novelist and essayist) Add a review

Scott Russell Sanders (born October 26, 1945, in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American novelist and essayist. He grew up in northeastern Ohio, part of the time on a military base where his father, a civilian, worked in the administration, and part of the time on a small farm. This combination of settings, military and agricultural, shaped his first book of nonfiction, The Paradise of Bombs (1987). He studied math, physics, and literature at Brown University, graduating first in his class in 1967.

Sanders has won acclaim for his skill as a personal essayist, with a focus on nature, community, and moral vision. He is the author of more than twenty books, which are listed below. A former contributing editor for Orion magazine, he has won numerous honors for his writing, including the Lannan Literary Award and the Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction. A frequent public lecturer, Sanders also conducts writing workshops across the United States, from Florida to Alaska, and New York to Oregon. After earning a Ph.D. in literature at the University of Cambridge, in 1971 he joined the English faculty at Indiana University, where he received the Frederic Bachman Lieber Award for Distinguished Teaching, the university's highest teaching award. In 2012 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Sanders has served as judge for many literary prizes, including the 2016 Permafrost Book Prize in Nonfiction for Permafrost: Literary Journal.

In 2009, Sanders retired from Indiana University as a distinguished professor of English. During his career, he has spent sabbatical years as a writer-in-residence at Phillips Exeter Academy, and as a visiting professor at University of Oregon, MIT, and Beloit College. He is married to Ruth Ann McClure, a biochemist. They have two children, Eva and Jesse, both of whom he addresses in letters included in The Force of Spirit. Sanders and his wife live in Bloomington, Indiana, in the watershed of the White River.