Richard Paik’s debut novel, A Thing or Two About the Game, is about the shared journeys, tangled challenges, and unexpected rewards that a reluctant coach and a group of girls’ little league softball players experience over the course of one season.

His short stories have appeared in Potomac Review, descant, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and Kestrel. He is currently at work on a collection of linked stories exploring themes of identity amid the festive backdrop of the holiday season.

Mr. Paik grew up in Massachusetts. After earning a Bachelors’ degree from Brown University in 1982, he has (over some relatively recent decades) travelled and lived in widely varying parts of the U.S., married, raised a daughter, and doggedly accumulated additional degrees, career paths, failed entrepreneurial enterprises, and hobbies.

He lives in Marblehead, MA with his wife, Barbara.