Bio
BOB WELCH is a speaker, author, award-winning columnist and teacher. He has served as an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
As head of Pebble in the Water Inspiration, he has keynoted conferences, workshops and retreats across America, tugging at hearts, tickling funny bones, and inspiring people to be ripples on life’s waters. Among his speaking highlights was being asked to keynote the dedication ceremony at the Massachusetts Statehouse for a plaque honoring WWII nurse Frances Slanger. It was Welch’s book about Slanger, American Nightingale, that convinced legislators to honor the Boston nurse.
“Forget the hyperbole,” said Julie Zander, organizer of the Association of Personal Historians conference in Portland in 2006. “Our 261 participants scored Welch a 4.81 on a 5.0-scale.”
A storyteller by nature, most of Welch’s speaking fodder comes from the 14 books he’s authored and the nearly 2,000 columns he’s written for The Register-Guard, Oregon’s second-largest newspaper, since 1999. He has twice won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’s highest award for writing. In addition, he has won dozens of other journalism awards, most recently the 2011 Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association’s “Best Writing” award. Other honors include the Seattle Times C.B. Blethen Award for Distinguished Feature Writing and the ONPA’s “Best Column” awards.
His book about a heroic World War II nurse, American Nightingale (Atria Books, 2004), was featured on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. A follow-up book, Pebble in the Water (AO Creative, 2008), amplifies the author’s American Nightingale experience from an idea written on a Wendy’s napkin to the four years it took before the book was published, and the life lessons learned along the way. A previous book, Easy Company Soldier (St. Martin’s Press, 2008), has been ranked No. 1 in the country among World War II/Western Front books. It’s about Don Malarkey, an Oregon-born member of the well-known “Band of Brothers” unit made famous by historian Steven Ambrose and an HBO miniseries. Welch’s 1999 book, A Father for All Seasons, won the Gold Medallion Award for Family & Parenting.
Three new Welch books will hit the shelves in the fall of 2012: Fifty-Two Little Lessons from It’s a Wonderful Life (Nashville: Thomas Nelson); Resolve: From WWII Bataan, the Story of a Soldier, a Flag, and a Promise Kept. (New York: Penguin); and Hiking Home: Waldo & Me on the Oregon PCT (Eugene: AO Creative).
Articles of Welch’s have been published in more than a dozen books, including seven in the popular “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series.
In addition, he has had articles published in such magazines as Los Angeles Times, Reader’s Digest, Sports Illustrated and Runner’s World.
In 2005, Welch founded the Beachside Writers Workshop in the Oregon coast town of Yachats. Since then, nearly 500 students have attended the 14 workshops. In 2010 it expanded to include a Beachside/McKenzie event on Oregon’s McKenzie River and plans are afoot to add a Beachside/Eugene event in January 2013.
Welch has been asked to speak at the National Writers Workshops and has served as a judge for numerous writing contests, including the Erma Bombeck Humor Writing awards.
Welch and his wife, Sally, live in Eugene. They are parents of two adult sons, who also live in Eugene with their families, and grandparents of four.
