Patrick Rothfuss

Patrick James Rothfuss was born on June 6, 1973, in Madison, Wisconsin, and finished high school in DeForest, in the same state. He earned an English degree from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point in 1999. Along the way he wrote a humor column with college survival advice for the campus paper, The Pointer. He then earned a master's at Washington State University in 2002 and went back to Stevens Point to teach part-time.

In 2002 an excerpt from what would become the second book, the story "The Road to Levenshir," won a quarterly round of the Writers of the Future contest. DAW Books bought the novel in 2006, and The Name of the Wind hit shelves in March 2007.

The premise won readers over through its structure. Kvothe lives in hiding under another name, running an inn in a nowhere village, until a chronicler recognizes him. He agrees to tell his life story over three days: a childhood in a troupe of traveling performers, years of poverty on the streets and his arrival at the University, where he studies the magic of names. The book moves between the present-day frame and a first-person account, in prose full of rhythm and music. It won a Quill Award, Romantic Times' prize for best epic fantasy and an Alex Award, and made Publishers Weekly's best books of the year list.

The Wise Man's Fear came out in March 2011, debuted at number one on the New York Times hardcover fiction list and won the David Gemmell Legend Award in 2012. Two shorter tales from the same world followed, both illustrated by Nate Taylor: The Slow Regard of Silent Things (2014), about Auri, a nearly dialogue-free story that follows her for a few days in the tunnels beneath the University; and The Narrow Road Between Desires (2023), an expanded version of the story "The Lightning Tree," with Bast at its center.

The third book, The Doors of Stone, still has no date in 2026. Rothfuss said in 2022 that the work was going slower than he would like, and the wait became one of the most talked-about topics among fantasy fans. In 2020 his DAW editor, Betsy Wollheim, wrote publicly that she had never seen a word of the book; the post was later deleted.

The screen stayed a promise too. Fox tried a series in 2013. Lionsgate later took the rights and planned a film and a series, with Showtime involved from 2017 to 2019; Lin-Manuel Miranda came aboard and left in 2022. A film with Sam Raimi was also announced in 2018. Nothing has been released.

Away from the books, Rothfuss started Worldbuilders in 2008, a charity drive that has raised more than $11.5 million, mostly for Heifer International. He also wrote the illustrated picture book for grown-ups The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle, helped create the board game Tak, based on The Wise Man's Fear, and co-wrote the comic Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons (2018) with Jim Zub.