CAROL ROH SPAULDING is the author of Waiting For Mr. Kim and Other Stories, a fiction  collection that spans 4 generations of a Korean American family, centering on the life of a character named Gracie Song. A native Californian, Roh Spaulding drew inspiration from her mother’s life and her Korean American heritage in this collection, which she describes as a way writing herself into her own cultural self-understanding.

Ironically, she didn’t begin that exploration as a child; it wasn’t until she went to Iowa for graduate school that she discovered an oral history done with her Korean grandmother and began to write the stories that became Waiting For Mr. Kim. 

This collection received the prestigious Flannery O’Conner award for Short Fiction from the University of Georgia Press in 2022 and was the October 2025 pick for the Talk of Iowa Book Club with Charity Nebbe. Her other stories and essays have appeared in several nationally recognized publications, received Notable Mention in Best American Essays 2019 and won several awards including a Pushcart Prize and the Glimmer Train Fiction Open. Roh Spaulding was an Iowa Author Award recipient of the Des Moines Public Library Foundation in 2024.

A professor of English at Drake University since 1996, Roh Spaulding received her doctorate in American literature from the University of Iowa. In the 1980’s she lived for a couple of years in Paris at the famous address 27 rue de Fleurus — former residence of the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein. Her 2024 novel, Helen Button, which received the Eludia Award from Hidden River Arts, is inspired by her time in France.

The author has given book talks on historical fiction and led writing workshops for aspiring writers on topics such as Writing From Your Roots and Yoga, Writing and the Body. She regularly speaks with book clubs across the country and has served on author panels with the Des Moines Book Festival, Associated Writing Programs, LitQuake, Okiboji Writers Retreat, and more. Her books are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop and other online retail booksellers, and, of course, at independent area bookstores like Beaverdale Books. Please visit her website: carolrohspaulding.com for additional information.

She lives with her husband in Granger, Iowa outside of Des Moines, where she pretends to homestead with a big garden, a fruit orchard, and 6 very spoiled hens.