Directory

Faculty

Richard Horan

Richard Horan

2022 Lecturer in English

[email protected]

B.A., Boston University, 1981
M.A.T. , University of Pittsburgh, 1988
TESOL, Columbia Teachers College, 2020

Richard Horan is an award-winning fiction writer and educator, as well as a book reviewer and nature writer. Professor Horan has had a colorful career, traveling as a professional middleweight boxer throughout the United States and Canada, and teaching overseas in Italy, Belgium, South Korea, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic.

One of his jobs was as a nurse's aide in a Midwestern mental hospital. It was this experience that led to his first novel, Life in the Rainbow. Pulitzer Prize winning author Larry McMurtry lauded the novel, blurbing: "Life in the Rainbow is a moving book and Richard Horan is an original voice, one to listen for." Alan Cheuse of "All Things Considered" gave the novel a rave review on April 3, 1996. Life in the Rainbow also received rave reviews from The New York Times, The Boston Book Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Publisher's Weekly, The Kirkus Review, and more. Professor Horan's second novel, Goose Music, was again enthusiastically endorsed by Larry McMurtry who opined: "Goose Music is funny, moving, convincing, original. Richard Horan is only getting better." It won numerous literary awards.

His first non-fiction book, SEEDS: One Man's Journey to Find America's Literary Trees, published by HarperCollins in 2011, was lauded by the environmental writer and leader of the climate campaign group 350.org, Bill McKibben. His most recent work, Harvest: An Adventure into the Heart of America's Family Farms, was released in September 2012. Pulitzer Prize winning author, Ted Morgan, had this to say about Harvest: "Richard Horan has brought us a welcome view of America to defy the prevailing political and financial nastiness. This is a timely and important book." Professor Horan is a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor.

Professor Horan lives in Trastevere with his wife, Mary, a jazz vocalist who performs throughout Italy and the United States. Professor Horan is a member of the La Banda della Scuola Popolare di Musica di Testaccio as second-chair trumpet.