Joseph Rein

Joseph Rein’s short stories have been appeared in Ruminate Magazine, The Pinch Literary Magazine, Laurel Review, and Iron Horse Literary Review. His most recent publication was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Joseph has had two screenplays produced into award-winning festival films, and he was a finalist for the PAGE International Screenwriting Competition. He is also co-editor of Creative Writing in the Digital Age, Creative Writing Innovations, and Dispatches from the Classroom. Joseph is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Praise for Roads without Houses: Stories

Joseph Rein’s Roads without Houses is a stunning debut, filled with stories that broke my heart and opened my mind. With elegant prose and unforgettable imagery, Rein brings to life characters who vibrate with the raw truth of human experience. These unforgettable stories showcase Rein's remarkable talent and push the bounds of narrative convention, expanding our sense of what’s possible on the page and in the world.

—Valerie Laken, author of Dream House

This is a collection of short fiction, but every word of it rings absolutely true. In these exactingly wrought stories are real people facing real challenges in pursuit of real dreams—all crafted by an author of very real talent.

—Liam Callanan, author of Paris by the Book

Joseph Rein’s stories carry the reader behind the closed doors of the human heart, into the chambers that hold the secret pain, sorrow and longing each of us yearns to share, yet hide. Reminiscent of Charles Baxter and Alice Munro, Rein is a terrifically wise writer who speaks with compassion and understanding for the small crimes and mistakes that are the hallmarks of our lives. This is a book for our time, when we are most in need of empathy and the grace that comes from opening ourselves, as these stories ask us to do.

—Jonis Agee, author of The Bones of Paradise