Lamb holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in teaching from the University of Connecticut and a Master of Fine Arts in writing from Vermont College. Lamb was nine years into a career as a high school English teacher at the Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, Connecticut, when he began to write fiction in 1981. He currently teaches a creative writing workshop at the York Correctional Institute, a maximum-security woman’s prison in Niantic, Connecticut.

Lamb has been honored with the State of Connecticut’s Governor’s Award and Distinguished Alumni Awards from both Vermont College and the University of Connecticut School of Education. He was a national “Thanks to Teachers” Excellence Award winner and a 1999 recipient of the New England Book Award for fiction. I Know This Much Is True received the Friends of the Library USA Reader’s Choice Award for best novel of 1995 and the Kenneth Johnson Memorial Book Award, which honored the novel’s contribution to removing the stigma of mental illness. She’s Come Undone was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for best first novel. Both She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Read Less ^