William Deresiewicz

William Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic, a frequent speaker at colleges, high schools, and other venues, and the best-selling author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. His new book is The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society.

Bill has published over 300 essays and reviews. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle’s Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and a Sydney Award; he is also a three-time National Magazine Award nominee. His work, which has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and many other publications, has been translated into 18 languages and anthologized by 39 college and scholastic readers.

Bill taught English at Yale and Columbia before becoming a full-time writer. He has spoken at over 160 educational and other venues and has appeared on The Colbert Report, Here & Now, The New Yorker Radio Hour, and many other outlets. He has held visiting positions at Bard, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna Colleges, as well as at the University of San Diego. His previous books are The Death of the Artist, A Jane Austen Education, and Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets.

Bill is a member of the Board of Directors of Tivnu: Building Justice, a Jewish social-justice gap year in Portland, Oregon, and of the Advisory Council of Project Wayfinder, which runs purpose-learning programs in schools across the United States and beyond.