Ben Fountain (born 1958) is an American writer currently living in New Bern, North Carolina.

He grew up in Elizabeth City, a tobacco town in eastern North Carolina.

[2] While collecting articles about things he was interested in, Fountain was riveted by Haiti, regarding it "like a laboratory, almost ... Everything that’s gone on in the last five hundred years—colonialism, race, power, politics, ecological disasters — it’s all there in very concentrated form.

[4][5] Fountain's debut novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, was released in early May 2012.

Fountain married Sharon (née Monahan), an attorney, in 1985; they met when both were students at Duke University School of Law.