Raymond Obstfeld

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|birth_place=Williamsport, Pennsylvania, U.S. |occupation= |nationality=American |alma_mater=Lycoming College
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Davis }} Raymond Obstfeld (born January 22, 1952) is an American writer of poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and screenplays as well as a professor of English at Orange Coast College.

He was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on January 22, 1952 and graduated from Loyalsock High School in 1969. His parents and older brother, Roland (b. 1947), were immigrants from Germany. His parents owned and operated Obstfeld's Jewish Delicatessen, which was the target of various hate crimes during Obstfeld's youth, from Nazi swastikas painted on the doors to arson, which gutted the building. His parents rebuilt the store, but these events informed Obstfeld’s later political activism as well as his writing.

After a year at the local Lycoming College, Obstfeld attended an experimental college in Redlands, California, (now the Johnston Center at the University of Redlands) from which he graduated in 1972. He then attended the University of California, Santa Barbara for a year, but left to pursue his writing. After a year living in San Francisco working odd jobs, he finished his first novel and got an agent.

In 1974, he returned to graduate school at the University of California, Davis, where he studied poetry under the famed poet Karl Shapiro. After graduating in 1976, he began teaching English at Orange Coast College at the age of 24, where he still teaches today. He has said that when he started teaching he intended to quit as soon as his writing career took off. However, in his first year of teaching he sold his first book of poetry as well as his first novel, with a contract for three additional novels. He decided that he actually loved teaching more than writing and couldn’t give it up.