Ron Rozelle (shown with Will in 2010), is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction (listed below) and taught English and Creative Writing for many years and conducted numerous writing workshops and seminars. In 2007 he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters and in 2017 was named a Distinguished Educator of the Year by Sam Houston State University, his alma mater. He and his wife Karen, also a retired teacher, are now retired and live in a suburb of Houston.
Into That Good Night (memoir)
The Windows of Heaven: A Novel of Galveston’s Great Storm of 1900
A Place Apart (novel)
Touching Winter: A Novel in Four Parts
Leaving the Country of Sin (novel)
My Boys and Girls Are in There: The 1937 New London School Explosion
Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston
Warden: Prison Life and Death from the Inside Out (with Jim Willett)
The Road to Enterprise: One Man’s Journey in the Land of Opportunity
(with Arch Aplin, Jr.)
Sundays with Ron Rozelle (occasional prose)
Description & Setting: Techniques and Exercises for
Creating a Believable World of People, Places, and Events
A volume in Writers’ Digest’s Write Great Fiction Series
critical reviews
Like a stone washed smooth by the sea, Rozelle’s language glows in the light and feels good in the hand.
– Booklist
Rozelle is a terrifically gifted storyteller.
– Joe Holley, author of Native Texan: Stories from Deep in the Heart
(In Into That Good Night) Rozelle splices together two eras in a potentially tricky structure that ultimately yields a spare, beautifully written memoir about fatherhood, bravery, memory and one man in particular.
– Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
(Into That Good Night) is a beautifully written memoir.
– The Austin American Statesman
(Into That Good Night is) one of the most memorable and uplifting books of the year.
- San Antonio Express News
Spare and understated, Into That Good Night is moving, clear-eyed and rendered in limpid prose. – – The Houston Chronicle
(Into That Good Night is) wonderful, absolutely first rate in every way. It is beautifully written, with a strong voice.
- Dan Rather, CBS News
(The Windows of Heaven: A Novel Of Galveston’s Great Storm of 1900 is) an extraordinary exploration of an extraordinary event.
- Margaret George, author of The Memoirs of Cleopatra
(In Sundays with Ron Rozelle) “there’s an element of Mark Twain, O. Henry, and our own John Graves in these pieces—humor and wisdom with Rozelle’s own special turns.
– Robert Compton, former book editor of The Dallas Morning News
Just as Ron Rozelle’s nonfiction Into That Good Night reads like a superb novel, his new novel, A Place Apart, has the feel of having really happened. The characters are real people, its emotions are honest and moving, its style limpid and direct and it is laced throughout with wry humor.
– David Westheimer, author of Von Ryan’s Express
Touching Winter is a well-crafted, elegantly written, character-driven literary novel.
- Robert Flynn, author of North to Yesterday
Ron Rozelle is a Texas Treasure and has never written a bad book . . . My Boys and Girls Are in There ranks among his best. Its strength lies in Rozelle’s ability to personalize details. He presents the slender margin between life and death that day.
- The Galveston County Daily News
(My Boys and Girls are in There) reads like a novel, yet its chapters arise from historical records, follow-up research and interviews with people who lost loved ones, survived injuries or otherwise were scarred.
- The Dallas Morning News
(In My Boys and Girls are in There) Ron Rozelle’s account of the explosion and its aftermath portrays a very human story in a very human way . . . Rozelle’s account is a well-researched yet eminently readable narrative.
- Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The panic, followed by stages of grief, jumps off the pages (of My Boys and Girls are in There) and the reading experience is likely to change one’s perspective on life–possibly forever.
- The Journal of Southern History
(Re: My Boys and Girls are in There) The New London School will now forever be in my mind. Ron Rozelle has done a masterful job.
– Mrs. George (Barbara) Bush (personal letter to TAMU Press Director)
(Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston is) a masterful job . . . the author reveals an emotional side of Houston that is often missing in other biographies.
- Civil War News
(In Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston) Ron Rozelle’s descriptive powers are impressive. Reading various scenes, I felt that I could see the word picture he painted.
- Bill O’Neal, author of Sam Houston Slept here and Sam Houston: A Study
in Leadership.
(Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston) establishes the important relationship between Houston’s public life and his private life … a fresh approach to Sam Houston.
– Walter M. Woodward, Director of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum
(In Description and Setting) Rozelle speaks to writers at all levels. He explains basic concepts very well, but also teaches more experienced writers how to push themselves to make their descriptions do double or even triple duty.
– Alex Kourvo, Writing Slices (blog)
