BARNSTABLE, Mass. – Roger Deering Skillings Jr. died peacefully on the night of Jan. 15, 2020, with his wife and daughter beside him. He was 82 years old and had been suffering from dementia for years. 
Born in Bath, in 1937, Roger was the son of Roger D. Skillings and Emily (Pease) Skillings. He attended Morse High School, graduated from Phillips Andover and then from Bowdoin College. A cleft palate hindered him from speaking as a child, leaving him alone and fiercely attuned to the language that eluded his tongue but never his mind. He was a passionate reader and soon an obsessed writer, Moby Dick his bible, the rotting wharves along the Kennebec River his heroic landscape.
He was among the first group of writing fellows at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., in 1969. Here he found the literary community he had dreamed of, and he served on the writing staff at the center for decades. A brilliant reader, he was the first to recognize the talent of many young writers who went on to great success. He himself was the author of eight books, mostly story collections, from Alternative Lives (1974) to Ptown Stories (1980) The Washashores (2018). 
He leaves his wife, Heidi Jon Schmidt; his daughter, Marisa Rose Skillings; and hundreds of friends. 
Contributions in his memory may be made to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass.