Patrick Rothfuss was born in Madison, Wisconsin, June 6, 1973. According to his website, he grew up as an avid reader in part due to inclement weather and a lack of cable television.<1> He enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1991. At university he originally planned to be a chemical engineer, changed his mind to pursue a career in clinical psychology, and finally declared his major as 'Undeclared' after three years—continuing to study any subject that caught his interest.<1> During that time, while holding odd jobs, Rothfuss worked on an extremely long fantasy novel called The Song of Flame and Thunder.<1> Somewhere during this time he began to write the "College Survival Guide," a column in The Pointer, the campus paper.
He graduated in 1999 with a B.A. in English.<1> After receiving his MA at Washington State University, he returned two years later to teach at Stevens Point.<1> After completing The Song of Flame and Thunder, Rothfuss submitted it to several publishing companies, but it was rejected. In 2002 he won the Writers of the Future competition with The Road to Levinshir, an excerpt from his novel.<2> After chatting to Kevin J. Anderson at a subsequent writer's workshop, Rothfuss secured a deal with his agent, Matt Bialer, who subsequently sold the novel to Betsy Wollheim at DAW Books. The Song of Flame and Thunder was split into a three-volume series entitled The Kingkiller Chronicle, the first installment of which, The Name of the Wind, was published in April 2007. The novel subsequently won the 2007 Quill Award for best sci-fi/fantasy and was listed on the New York Times Best Seller list.<3>
