William Orem’s first collection of stories, Zombi, You My Love, won the GLCA New Writers Award, formerly given to Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, Richard Ford and Alice Munro. His second collection, Across the River, won the Texas Review Novella Prize. His first novel, Killer of Crying Deer, won the Eric Hoffer Award and has been optioned for film. His first collection of poems, Our Purpose in Speaking, won the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and was published by MSU Press. It also won the Rubery International Book Award in poetry and was chosen Book of the Year. His second novel, Miss Lucy, won the Gival Press Novel Award; Kirkus listed it as one of the Best Books of 2019. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. 

Meanwhile, his short plays have been performed internationally, winning both the Critics’ Prize and Audience Favorite Award at Durango Theatre Fest, and thrice being nominated for the prestigious Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

He grew up in Maryland and DC, holds a PhD in English as well as an MFA in fiction from Indiana University, Bloomington, and is currently he is a Senior Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College, Boston.