Wade Rouse is the USA TODAY, Publishers Weekly and #1 internationally bestselling author of 20 books, including five memoirs, twelve novels and three holiday novellas. The year 2025 will be a big year with three books being published, including his latest Viola Shipman novel, The Page Turner.
Wade’s books have been translated into nearly 30 languages and have been bestsellers across the world. His novel, The Secret of Snow, was recently optioned for a TV movie.
He chose his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, as a pen name to honor the working poor Ozarks seamstress whose sacrifices changed his family’s life and whose memory inspires his fiction.
Wade’s books have been selected multiple times as Must-Reads by NBC’s Today Show as well as Michigan Notable Books of the Year. His memoirs and novels have been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today and on Chelsea Lately and chosen three times as Indie Next Picks by the nation’s independent booksellers. Wade was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards in Humor (he lost to Tina Fey) and was named by Writer’s Digest as “The #2 Writer, Dead or Alive, We’d Like to Have Drinks With” (Wade was sandwiched between Ernest Hemingway and Hunter Thompson).
His novel, The Page Turner, (April 2025 from HarperCollins) – a book that celebrates how books and reading change and save us – takes readers inside the world of publishing today and asks why we judge one another and the books we read by our collective covers. The Page Turner has received praise from Mary Kay Andrews, Steven Rowley, Annabel Monaghan and selected as the Book of the Month for Brenda Novak’s 2025 Book Box.
Wade’s upcoming book, Thank You for Being a Friend (March 2026), is a hilarious story inspired by TV’s beloved The Golden Girls that celebrates love, aging, finding your people, and the art of impeccably timed one-liners.
His most recent memoir, Magic Season, which details how the love of baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals was the only thing to bond him and his conservative Ozarks father, was a Michigan Notable Book of the Year, a Barnes & Noble Father’s Day selection, a USA Today summer reading selection, and a Best Book of Summer by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It will publish in paperback in October 2025.
Wade is a noted humorist, whose nonfiction has been selected as part of the American Library Association’s inaugural “Rainbow List” recognizing outstanding books with significant and authentic LGBTQIA+ content for readers.
A former journalist, magazine writer and People reporter, his writing has appeared in a diverse range of publications and media, including Coastal Living, Time, All Things Considered, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Salon, Forbes, Writer’s Digest and Publisher’s Weekly.
Wade earned his B.A. from Drury University and his master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. He divides his time between Saugatuck, Michigan, and Palm Springs, California, and is also an acclaimed writing teacher who has mentored numerous students to become published authors.
Wade hosts the popular Facebook Live literary happy hour, “Wine & Words with Wade,” every Thursday at 6:30 p.m. EST on the Viola Shipman author page where he talks writing, inspiration and hope, takes readers on tours of the places that inspire his novels, throws costumed monthly office parties, and welcomes bestselling authors and publishing insiders.
“I have met many authors over the years, and I have to say that Wade Rouse is one of the kindest, compassionate, and most engaging authors I have ever met! He charmed each and every one of us with his humorous anecdotes, heartfelt stories, and bubbly personality! He really knows how to enchant an audience, and throughout the program he had us all laughing, crying, and filled us with hope!”