Professor Minot is the author of three novels, two collections of short stories, three college textbooks, and many short stories. His novels are Chill of Dusk (Doubleday), Ghost Images (Harper & Row), and Surviving the Flood (Atheneum/Second Chance Press). His story collections are Crossings (University of Illinois Press) and Bending Time (The Permanent Press). His textbooks are Reading Fiction, Three Genres, now in its 7th edition, and most recently Literary Nonfiction, the Fourth Genre. All are published by Prentice Hall.

His stories have appeared in such magazines as the ATLANTIC, HARPERS, PLAYBOY as well as a wide range of literary quarterlies including The Kenyon Review, The Virginia Quaterly Review, The Sewaneee Review, and others. They have been selected several times for inclusion in both the O. Henry Prize Stories collection and The Best American Short Stories.

He received his A.B. from Harvard College and his M.A. from The Johns Hopkins University. He has been awarded two fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts. He served as Chair of the Creative Writing Department from 1990 to 1994. He and his wife, Virginia S. Minot, an artist and printmaker, migrate annually between Riverside and Maine.