Welcome. If you love reading and writing, then we have something in common. Check out these links for writers and readers.

"Articles & Advice" gives you lots of no B-S info on writing and the writing scene.

Keep personal writing alive by joining rbt writers. Get cool, free note cards.

Send in a question about writing or publishing

Stay in touch: email ron

May you write on.


Ron's latest book -- FROM ANIMAL HOUSE TO OUR HOUSE: A LOVE STORY - - is out, Feb. 14! He's got lots of PR lined up for this book, starting with an appearance on Baltimore's "The Dan Rodericks's Show" and articles in the Urbanite and Baltimore Magazine.

>>FROM ANIMAL HOUSE TO OUR HOUSE video trailer right here<<

Ron's essay, "The Myth of the Tech-Savvy Student," appears in the November edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education

Ron was a panelist at the Baltimore Writer's Conference, where he spoke about the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction.

Ron's essay, "Doodler," appears in the latest edition of The Florida Review, where it won a second place in the magazine's 2010 Editors Choice awards

You can find Ron among other fine writers talking about writing at the Writer's Round-up

Ron won fellowships to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Ragdale Arts Colony for the summer. He'll be working on a new book of nonfiction.

Ron was a finalist for the Hudson prize for the best short story collection manuscript. This same manuscript (in a slightly different form) was also a finalist, two years ago, for the Flannery O'Connor prize. Will it ever get published? he wonders.

Ron's Kiss Me Stranger book tour is going strong; he stopped in Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee in March and visited for Boston, California, Denver, and Cleveland in May.

Ron's essay, "Jars and Jars of Them," appears in the latest edition of Defunct! magazine (April 1)

Ron's guest edited a special fiction edition (spring) of West Branch's Wired (online) magazine: featured are stories by Nahid Rachlin, Peter Cameron, and Kathy Flann, and an introduction written by Ron.

Reviews and interviews are coming in for Kiss Me, Stranger, Ron's illustrated novel.

Ron's illustrated novel, Kiss Me, Stranger, has just been published by Ig Publishing (Feb. 2011). The Kiss-Me-Stranger reading tour will take him through Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and more.

Ron's book From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story has been accepted for publication by Academy Chicago Publishers. It will tell all about how Ron and his then-girlfriend (now wife) took on a huge, wrecked fraternity house and -- knowing nothing about renovation -- brought it back to its 1897 Victorian splendor. In 2008, the house was featured in This Old House magazine, where it became the most popular rehab story on their website. For more on Ron's house adventures, check out Houselove.org.

Ron's essay, "The Farmer's Robot," appears in the fall issue of Defunct! magazine, a new online publication that focuses on "everything that has had its day."

Ron won second place in the 2010 Florida Review Editors Award competition. His essay, "Doodler," will appear in the magazine's winter issue. Also Ron was selected for special mention by Robert Olen Butler in the 2010 Ropewalk fiction chapbook competition.

Ron spent two weeks in August at Eastern Frontier Residency on Norton Island, off the coast of Maine. Photos here.

Ron's chapbook, Wheels, is out (May), the 2009 prize-winner from Gertrude Press. More here.

Ron's story, My Small Murders, appears in the City Sages: Baltimore, an anthology of Baltimore writers -- everyone from Edgar Allen. Poe to Laura Lippman, just out from CityLit Press

Ron's essay, Nana Gragg, is out (June) in the latest issue of the Southern Humanities Review

Look for Ron's illustrated novel, Kiss Me, Stranger, from IG Publishing in January 2011. It's way cool. Says, Michael Martone: "This book out-hybrids any hybrid you can imagine. ... Stunning." For more, click here

Look for Ron's animated trailer for Kiss Me, Stranger--coming in summer 2010.

April 17, Ron reads at City Lit, Baltimore
March 4, Ron reads at Hartford University, CT

Feb. 20, Ron reads at Mina's in Baltimore, the 510 Reading Series

Ron's second story collection was a finalist in the 2009 Flannery O'Connor competition, sponsored by the University of Georgia Press. His first collection was also a finalist in the same contest.

Ron won the 2009 Gertrude Press chapbook contest. His story "Wheels" (excerpted from Drummer Girl, his novel in progress) will appear as a chapbook in January 2009.


Ron has two essays forthcoming: "Kissing" in the Missouri Review and "Nana Gragg" in Southern Humanities Review.


Look for Ron's stories in the spring editions of the Iowa Review, the Connecticut Review, and Waccamaw. The Iowa Review features "Cats As Tuna" on its spring 2009 website. You can find "The Boy With Black Nails" online also.


Say the editors of the Connecticut Review about the Yo Ho Affair: "a delightful read and, like the junk food it celebrates, leaves you wanting more." Says the editor of the Iowa Reivew about Cats as Tuna: "What a charmer!"


Also -- coming -- "Cats As Tuna," an animated short based on the story in the Iowa Review.


One year after its appearance in This Old House magazine, Ron's article on his and Jill's renovation of an 1897 Victorian is still going strong at the TOH website and it's still bringing in dozens of comments like these:

This is absolutely a work of art!! Beautiful!! You did a wonderful job!!

Your house is beautiful! Your efforts paid off, big time, and now you can look back on all the hard work and see that it was all worth it. Congratulations! You should write a how-to and a how-not-to book about your experiences.

If you haven't visited Ron's site about the house, take a look: houselove.org Ron is shopping the book -- Renovation: A Love Story -- to publishers.


Ron has short stories forthcoming in the Iowa Review and Connecticut Review.

Ron's essay, "Preservation," appears in the December 2008 issue of Guernica, a magazine of arts and politics. The essay is an excerpt of a book-in-progress about his work in Micronesia (working title, Searching for the Island Story-Tellers). Link: Guernica magazine

Ron's story, "My Small Murders" appears in Dzanc's Books' anthology Best of the Web 2008 . Also the story was cited as one of the year's best by Story South's Million Writers Award series.

Read Dzanc Books' interview with Ron Tanner

Ron's essay, "Renovation," an excerpt from his memoir, Renovation: A Love Story, was a finalist in Narrative Magazine's 2008 Love Story contest.

Ron's This Old House article, "From Animal House to Our House," went online and became the most read home-decoration story on the internet in early March. Eventually it was bumped by "Maria Carey's Magnificent Manhattan Triplex." Ron and Jill's story has brought in more than 500,000 online readers. Here's the link: This Old House online

Ron elected president of the AWP. Ron is the new president of Association of Writers and Writing Programs, which represents over 28,000 writers, 400 writing programs, and 128 writing conferences. Ron will chair the AWP board of directors and help with strategic planning.

Ron won a grant from the National Park Service to direct a program to help preserve the oral culture of the Marshall Islands, in Micronesia. To learn more, go to his blog (above) and also to mistories.org. He'll take a leave of absence from his unversity in spring '08 for the project.

Ron's house appears in This Old House magazine. Seven years ago, Ron Tanner and Jill Eicher undertook the rehab of a nearly destroyed former frat house in an historic Baltimore neighborhood. Ron has written a book about it: Renovation: A Love Story. And This Old House magazine has done a feature on the project--in the Jan./Feb. '08 issue of the magazine. For more, go to houselove.org.

Ron won a 2007 "Best of the Web" award for his short story, "My Small Murders," which appeared in the summer '07 edition of Wheelhouse magazine. His story will be anthologized in Dzanc Books' Best of the Web (2008).

Ron co-chairs the AWP national convention in New York City. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Featured events include readings by John Irving, A.S. Byatt and Alice McDermott.

Ron won the 2007 Towson Prize for Literature for his collection of stories, A Bed of Nails. Administered annually by Towson University, in Towson, Maryland, the prize is granted on the basis of literary and aesthetic excellence as determined by a panel of distinguished judges appointed by the university. The first award, made in the fall of 1980, went to novelist Anne Tyler.

Ron won the 2006 Jack Dyer award for Fiction in a national competition sponsored by the Crab Orchard Review.  His story, "Diversity!", appeared in the summer '07 issue of Crab Orchard Review. "Diversity!" is an excerpt from his recently completed novel, A Nation of Children. This is the second excerpt from Nation that has won a national award and the fourth that has been published.

Ron's latest story publication can be seen in wheelhouse magazine
In spring '06, Ron was elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), which represents more than 28,000 students, writers, teachers and administrators at more than 400 colleges and universities and 85 writers' conferences and centers.

In winter '06, Ron was the Visiting Writing Fellow at Lyon College, in Batesville, Arkansas. He spent six weeks at the college, where he gave a lecture, a reading, conducted a workshop and held a weekly seminar.

In April '06, he was a fellow at the Ledig House for international writers, in Omi, New York (near Hudson).

Ron has been named conference chair of the 2008 national convention for the Associated Writing Programs in New York City. The conference will celebrate AWP's 40th anniversary.

In fall '06West Branch, the literary magazine published by Bucknell University, named Ron a contributing editor.

Bio >>

<< Home

Top