R. D. Skillings has been a unique and compelling chronicler of Provincetown and its people for more than fifty years. He moved to Provincetown in 1967, became one of the first Fine Arts Work Center Fellows (1969 - 1971), then joined the Writing Committee, where he was instrumental for many years. His works include: Alternative Lives, stories, Ithaca House, 1974; P-town Stories (or The Meat-rack) 1980; Apple-wood Books, stories; In a Murderous Time, 1984, stories, Apple-wood Books; Where the Time Goes, stories, University Press of New England, 1999; How Many Die, novel, University Press of New England; Obsidian, novella, Arts End Books, 2001; Memory for Marisa Rose, Arts End Books, poems 2003; Summer's End, Provincetown Arts Press, stories 2016. Author Jhumpa Lahiri said of Skillings, "For forty-five years this town has been Skilling's muse, his mooring, the setting and subject of much of his fiction. He is a character for whom place is character and vice versa."