William Deresiewicz is an author, essayist, critic, and speaker. His books include the New York Times bestseller Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life and, most recently, The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society. His current project is a historically situated memoir about being Jewish in modernity.
Bill has published more than 300 essays and reviews and spoken at nearly 200 colleges, high schools, and other venues. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and a Sidney Award for the long-form essay. 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 supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation, translated into 19 languages, and anthologized in Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and more than 40 college readers.
Bill received a PhD in English from Columbia and taught at Yale before becoming a full-time writer. He has held visiting positions at Bard, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna Colleges as well as at American Jewish University and the University of San Diego. His previous books are The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech, A Jane Austen Education, and Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets.
Bill is a member of the board (directorial or advisory) of The Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life, a retreat and study program in Catskill, NY; Tivnu: Building Justice, which runs a Jewish service-learning gap year and other programs; and the Prohuman Foundation, which promotes the ideals of individual uniqueness and shared humanity.
And, since you’re wondering, it’s /də-REH-zə-WITS/.