Location: United States
Member Since:
April 15, 2012
BF Oswald
Biography
Ben F. Oswald was born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1934 and moved to Bay Village when he was six where he lived until at sixteen he became a cadet at Randolph Macon Academy, Front Royal, Virginia, graduating in 1953. He then attended Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania leaving at the end of his freshman year to join the Air Force where he served first as a drill instructor and later as a water safety instructor and lifeguard. Four years later he returned to Allegheny graduating in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, and a minor in creative writing.
Immediately after graduating he began a four-year stint as a Federal investigator leaving in 1964 to attend graduate school, first at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology and finishing at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio where he earned a Masters degree in counseling psychology. He then pursued a variety of vocational interests.
During his working life he has been a short order cook, printer’s devil, dairy farmhand, high school teacher, minister, contractor, psychotherapist/hypnotherapist, and college professor, now emeritus. During his career as a member of the faculty of North Central State College, Mansfield, Ohio he taught twenty-three different courses that covered all aspects of human development and behavior from birth to death, creating eighteen of these courses for the nursing, radiology, human services, and behavioral science curriculums. During his tenure he also authored two textbooks, one on human sexuality, the other on aging, and he contributed poetry, essays, and short fiction to the college literary journal.
After he retired from teaching he continued as a trustee of the Mansfield Sailing Club and then as Commodore, and he also became a member of SCORE. In 2002 he resigned from MSC and SCORE and returned to contracting. He also began to write fiction and in 2007 his first novel, Echoes of Ellen, was published and was nominated for both a National Book Award and an EPPIE (eBook award). Flood – A Saga in 2009, Five Women In Black in 2010, The Footpath in 2011, and The Rental in 2012 followed Echoes of Ellen. He writes under the name bf oswald.
Ben and his wife Cynthia are the parents of four daughters and a son, and also enjoy their seven grandchildren and two great grandsons and a great granddaughter. They are now Florida residents but spend their summers traveling the country in an RV visiting family and friends.
For more details about his books go to www.bfoswaldauthor.com. To ask questions or make comments email him at bfoswaldauthor@gmail.com.
Immediately after graduating he began a four-year stint as a Federal investigator leaving in 1964 to attend graduate school, first at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology and finishing at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio where he earned a Masters degree in counseling psychology. He then pursued a variety of vocational interests.
During his working life he has been a short order cook, printer’s devil, dairy farmhand, high school teacher, minister, contractor, psychotherapist/hypnotherapist, and college professor, now emeritus. During his career as a member of the faculty of North Central State College, Mansfield, Ohio he taught twenty-three different courses that covered all aspects of human development and behavior from birth to death, creating eighteen of these courses for the nursing, radiology, human services, and behavioral science curriculums. During his tenure he also authored two textbooks, one on human sexuality, the other on aging, and he contributed poetry, essays, and short fiction to the college literary journal.
After he retired from teaching he continued as a trustee of the Mansfield Sailing Club and then as Commodore, and he also became a member of SCORE. In 2002 he resigned from MSC and SCORE and returned to contracting. He also began to write fiction and in 2007 his first novel, Echoes of Ellen, was published and was nominated for both a National Book Award and an EPPIE (eBook award). Flood – A Saga in 2009, Five Women In Black in 2010, The Footpath in 2011, and The Rental in 2012 followed Echoes of Ellen. He writes under the name bf oswald.
Ben and his wife Cynthia are the parents of four daughters and a son, and also enjoy their seven grandchildren and two great grandsons and a great granddaughter. They are now Florida residents but spend their summers traveling the country in an RV visiting family and friends.
For more details about his books go to www.bfoswaldauthor.com. To ask questions or make comments email him at bfoswaldauthor@gmail.com.