Willy Vlautin

Willy Vlautin is an American novelist and musician whose fiction chronicles working-class life in the American West with spare, heartbreaking precision. Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, he is both a novelist and the founder of the country and folk bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines. His seven novels include The Motel Life (2006), Northline (2008), Lean on Pete (2010), The Free (2014), Don't Skip Out on Me (2018), The Night Always Comes (2021), and The Horse (2023). Three of these—The Motel Life, Lean on Pete, and The Night Always Comes—have been adapted as films. Vlautin was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award for Lean on Pete. He won the Joyce Carol Oates Prize in 2025 (as co-winner) in recognition of his body of work. His work is notable for its compassionate portrayal of homeless, addicted, and economically precarious individuals who are often invisible in American literature. He has received three Oregon Book Awards, the Nevada Silver Pen Award, and has been inducted into both the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. He teaches in the MFA program at Pacific University in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his family.