rick & roberta bie at ferry bluff, wisconsin river, 2025

Author Rick Bie has spent a lifetime correcting nearly everyone he’s met on their pronunciation of his last name. Please know that Bie rhymes with brie, not with camembert.

Like brie the cheese, Bie is a non-native product of Wisconsin* – born elsewhere, but assimilated into America’s Dairyland and smacking of its distinctive terroir. His stories are set in real-life Wisconsin, in actual places described with the precision of a geographer and the insight of a folklorist. His aim is to capture the essence and the quirks of the Badger State and its people, and to do so in an authentic Midwestern voice: plainly stated, mostly measured, and frequently humorous. 

As to why Bie can’t claim to be a native Wisconsinite, blame Nikita Khrushchev. The Berlin Crisis of 1961 relocated his parents to Army Fort Devens in Massachusetts, where baby Ricky was born in 1962. After the conflict, the Bie family returned to Racine, Wisconsin, a factory town on Lake Michigan between Milwaukee and Chicago. Bie grew up in Racine as a smart but shy kid, becoming enamored of Monty Python, Steely Dan, and the Chicago Cubs as a teenager.

Bie graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1986 with a BA in English, and no idea what to do with it. Having learned how to ask, “Do you want fries with that?” in four languages, he supported himself by toiling in restaurants while churning out freelance articles and selling an occasional cartoon. After getting married and buying a house, Bie began a 28-year career in customer service in the printing and direct-mail industries. 

In 1999, Bie and his wife Roberta moved to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, a small college town on the cusp of the Northwoods. A haven for outdoor recreation, Stevens Point inspired Bie to become immersed in bicycling, cross country skiing, running, camping, and hiking. In 2005, Rick and Roberta committed to hiking the entire 1,100-mile length of Wisconsin’s Ice Age National Scenic Trail. They completed their journey in 2012, becoming the 72nd and 73rd people recognized for having accomplished the feat. 

Soon afterward, Bie began work on an offbeat sort of field guide to the Ice Age Trail, embellished with anecdotes from their own quest. The project quickly morphed from non-fiction to fiction after Bie realized that the accounts of the hikes he and his wife undertook were actually pretty boring. And thus, a vision for the novel that he had always aspired to write began to take shape.

Bie credits the Ice Age Trail for shattering the 40-year writer’s block that had stood in his way as a novelist. Writing about the Trail engaged many of his longtime passions: his love of maps, his ardor for the outdoors, his appetite for the silent sports. And while it seemed to take forever to finish (Bie readily admits to being a slow writer), his first novel, The Freakin’ Destination, was finally published in February 2024. He has been tickled by the feedback he’s received from readers, and thoroughly enjoyed chatting with readers and Ice Age Trail enthusiasts at presentations and book events across Wisconsin. 

Bie is currently writing his second novel – this one a dark comedy based in the resort community of Waupaca, Wisconsin. It’s set primarily in a fictional print shop (you write what you know, after all) where the petty, routine jealousies between coworkers slowly devolve into serious mayhem. Readers familiar with Waupaca will recognize actual restaurants, shops, parks and other local landmarks tagged in the novel. They will also perhaps recognize fictionalized area “types”: the well-off waterfront property owner, the exurbanite working schlub with an odd hobby, the sketchy individual with anger issues who may or may not be a good source for weed.

Bie’s as-yet-untitled second novel is tentatively scheduled for publication in 2028.

*Unlike brie the cheese, Bie does not have a snowy-white edible rind composed of mold.