There aren't many people who can legitimately say that military service in Vietnam one of the best things ever to happen to them. Robert Olen Butler is one of them.
A Northwestern University Alum (School of Speech, 1967), Butler's year in Vietnam led him indirectly to a career in literature. Among its highlights would have to be his short-story collection, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won him the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Growing up in St. Louis, Butler started his career at Northwestern as a theatre major, and then switched to the field of oral interpretation, and studied with many of the field's pioneers, including Charlotte Lee, Wallace Bacon, Robert Breen, and Lilla Heston (sister of the famed actor). After graduating summa cum laude from NU, getting a masters degree in playwriting from the University of Iowa, and his tour of duty, Butler spent many years struggling in obscurity, writing four novels by hand while commuting to a Manhattan editing job.
He has taught at McNeese State University since 1985. Butler is married to another writer, Elizabeth Dewberry.
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