A writer is a person who produces literary content, including but not limited to stories, poetry, music and other literary art, advertising, procedures, and books.

Profession

, 1989]]

The word is almost synonymous with author. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images, whether fiction or non-fiction. A writer may compose in many different forms including (but certainly not limited to) poetry, prose, or music. Accordingly, a writer in specialist mode may rank as a poet, novelist, copywriter, composer, lyricist, playwright, mythographer, journalist, screenwriter for film or television, etc. (See also: creative writing, technical writing and academic papers.)

Writers' output frequently contributes to the cultural content of a society, and that society may value its writerly – or literature – as an art much like the visual arts (see: painting, sculpture, photography), music, craft and performance art (see: drama, theatre, opera, musical).

In Colonial England, a "Writer" was the lowest grade in the civil services abroad. With respect to society, little has changed in this regard. The East India Company requirements for a "Writer" was a basic knowledge of accounts and youth. Applicants had to sign a bond and obtain a nomination. In the British Royal Navy, writer is the trade designation for an administrative clerk.

Internet writers

The popularity of the Internet opened the door of opportunity to many established and aspiring writers alike. The new medium created concerns over writing quality in the Internet age. Writers’ advocates believe the Internet has led to a lower level of writing standards. While new modes of communication through the Internet are constantly advancing and changing, the issue of writing quality questions the very definition of writing in the Internet age.

Regardless of whether writers are devoted to the craft, they are expected to be able to write well both offline as well as online, or at least recognize the difference between the two. When writing for the Web, it is the content that matters. Writing for the Web is very different from writing for print. Print today remains superior to the Web when it comes to visible space, image and type quality, and speed. Web visitors are quickly scrolling through sites seeking specific information and will not always take the time to read every word. Traditional writing techniques and standards are less of a priority, as multiple headings, bullets and lists are needed to aid scanning readers. With the increase of tech people working as a website content writer, the rules of grammar are respected.

Writers not writing for a living often find enjoyment and small payouts from Web sites seeking material to raise their sites higher in the search engine rankings. This lack of professionalism distorts the line between qualified and amateur writers. Writing standards are often not the highest priority as Web sites seek to drive traffic to gain advertising exposure.

See also

Author

Copywriting

Ghostwriter

Hack writer

List of women writers

List of writers' conferences

Lists of writers

Physician writer

Professional writing

Style guide

Technical writer

Website content writer

Writer's voice

Writing

Writing circle

Spelling

is the correct spelling, but there are some names and archaic spellings that use .

References

External links

Social site for writers and publishers only

List of popular resources for writers

Community site for writers of literary fiction

Writers community

Category:Writing occupations Category:Communication design

Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
Name	Ellie Goulding
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Elena Jane Goulding (born 30 December 1986), better known as Ellie Goulding, is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. She rose to fame after topping the BBC Sound of 2010 poll and winning the Critics' Choice award at the 2010 BRIT Awards. After signing to Polydor Records in 2009, Goulding released her first extended play An Introduction to Ellie Goulding, followed by her debut full-length studio album, Lights, in 2010. Later that year Goulding recorded a re-release of Lights entitled Bright Lights. Goulding is currently working on her second album. As of January 2011, Goulding has been nominated for two 2011 BRIT Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Artist.
Name	Goulding, Ellie
Alternative names	Elena Jane Goulding
Short description	British singer
Date of birth	30 December 1986
Place of birth	Hereford, England

Category:1986 births Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Alumni of the University of Kent Category:BRIT Award winners Category:British electronic musicians Category:British female guitarists Category:British female singers Category:English-language singers Category:British singer-songwriters Category:British vegetarians Category:Female rock singers Category:Folktronica Category:Indie pop musicians Category:Living people Category:People from Hereford Category:Polydor Records artists Category:Synthpop

Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
Name	Just Jack
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Jack Allsopp
Born	May 12, 1975
Origin	Camden Town, London, UK
Genre	Dance pop, hip hop, garage
Years active	2002–present
Label	RGR Records (2002-2003) Mercury (2006–present)
Url	JustJack.co.uk

Jack Allsopp (born 12 May 1975), known by the stage name Just Jack, is an English musician best known for the songs "Embers", "Starz in Their Eyes" and "The Day I Died".

Background

Born in Camden, Allsopp grew up listening to dance music including breakdance, electro hip hop and house. An amateur breakdancer at eight, he started DJing at the age of 15 and he soon became submerged in DJ culture and UK garage.

After completing a degree in Furniture Design at Kingston University, he enrolled in a community music production course, so that he could better his awareness of sampling and its potential for use. He went on to practice on perfecting his sound by night and to take on a series of jobs by day.

Career

Allsopp's debut album, titled The Outer Marker and was released in 2002 by the independent label RGR Records, was a collection of songs about modern life, relationships, and the pressures of social situations. The album spawned three singles "Paradise (Lost & Found)", "Snowflakes" and "Triple Tone Eyes".

He did not gain fame until 2007, following his TV debut on BBC2's Later... with Jools Holland, and then on the Channel 4 show The Friday Night Project, where he performed the single "Starz In Their Eyes", which reached No.2 in the UK Singles Chart; the following three singles didn't make the top thirty. "Starz In Their Eyes" was also featured in the Dolce & Gabbana Summer 2008 fashion show. Kylie Minogue also did a collaboration with him, "I Talk Too Much", for the American release of his Overtones album.

He performed at Glastonbury Festival, V Festival and T4 on the Beach in 2007 and again at Glastonbury Festival in 2009. Performed at Guilfest in 2010.

"Starz In Their Eyes" is also featured on the Xbox 360 Kinect game Kinect Sports.

He was set to release his third album, titled All Night Cinema, on 31 August 2009, preceded by first single "Embers", which had its premiere on BBC Radio 1 on 12 January 2009 and second single "The Day I Died", which became Jack's second highest charting single on the UK Singles Chart. "The Day I Died" was also used in "". Both singles peaked inside the top 20. The original choice for second single was "Doctor Doctor" but the single release was subsequently postponed.

He will perform at the "Nuit de l'ESSEC" on January 29, 2011.

Discography

Albums

{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center; ! rowspan=2| Year ! rowspan=2| Album ! colspan=5| Highest ranking |- style=font-size:smaller; ! width=50| UK ! width=50| IRL ! width=50| FRA ! width=50| SWI ! width=50| DUT |- | 2002 | align=left| The Outer Marker

1st Studio Album

Released: September 30, 2002

Genre: Hip hop, trip hop

Label: RGR

| – | – | – | – | – |- | 2007 | align=left| Overtones

2nd Studio Album

Released: 29 January 2007

Genre: Hip hop, House

Label: Mercury Records

| 6 | 11 | 25 | 69 | 74 |- | 2009 | align=left| All Night Cinema

3rd Studio Album

Released: 31 August 2009

Genre: Pop, Electro

Label: Mercury Records

| 22 | – | 94 | – | – |- |}

Singles

References

External links

Just Jack official website

Just Jack @ MySpace

Just Jack interview at mychemicaltoilet.com

Category:English dance musicians Category:English male singers Category:English pop singers Category:English electronic musicians Category:1975 births Category:Living people Category:People from London

Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
Name	John Irving
Caption	Irving in Cologne, Germany, 14-09-2010
Birthname	John Wallace Blunt, Jr.
Birthdate	March 02, 1942
Birthplace	Exeter, New Hampshire
Occupation	novelist, screenwriter
Awards	Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Notableworks	The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany
Influences	Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Günter Grass, Thomas Hardy, Robertson Davies, Kurt Vonnegut

John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt, Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.

Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978. Some of Irving's novels, such as The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, have been bestsellers and many have been made into movies. Several of Irving's books (Garp, Meany, A Widow for One Year) and short stories have been set in and around Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire where Irving grew up as the son of an Exeter faculty member, Colin F.N. Irving (1941), and nephew of another, H. Hamilton "Hammy" Bissell (1929). (Both Irving and Bissell, and other members of the Exeter community, appear somewhat disguised in many of his novels.)

Irving was in the Exeter wrestling program both as a wrestler and as an assistant coach, and wrestling features prominently in his books, stories and life.

He won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for 1999 for his script of The Cider House Rules.

Career

Irving's career began at the age of 26 with the publication of his first novel, Setting Free the Bears. The novel was reasonably well reviewed, but failed to gain a large readership. In the late 1960s, he studied with Kurt Vonnegut at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. His second and third novels, The Water-Method Man and The 158-Pound Marriage, were similarly received. At around this time, in 1975, Irving accepted a position as Assistant Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College.

Frustrated at the lack of promotion his novels were receiving from his first publisher, Random House, Irving offered his fourth novel, The World According to Garp (1978), to Dutton, which promised him stronger commitment to marketing. The novel became an international bestseller and cultural phenomenon, and was a finalist for the American Book Award (now the National Book Award) for hardcover fiction in 1979 (the award went to Tim O'Brien for Going After Cacciato). Garp won the National Book Foundation's award for paperback fiction the following year. Garp was later made into a film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Robin Williams in the title role and Glenn Close as his mother; it garnered several Academy Award nominations, including nominations for Close and John Lithgow. Irving makes a brief cameo in the film as an official in one of Garp's high school wrestling matches.

Though it is not a widely known fact, The World According to Garp was, along with "Continental Drift" by Russell Banks, considered a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1979, which was awarded to The Stories of John Cheever.

Garp transformed Irving from an obscure, academic literary writer to a household name, and his subsequent books were bestsellers. The first was The Hotel New Hampshire (1981), which sold well despite mixed reviews from critics. Like Garp, the novel was quickly made into a film, this time directed by Tony Richardson and starring Jodie Foster, Rob Lowe, and Beau Bridges. "Interior Space," a short story published in "Fiction" magazine in 1980, was given an O. Henry Award and collected in one of the epnonymous anthologies in 1981.

In 1985, Irving published The Cider House Rules. An epic set in a Maine orphanage, the novel's central topic is abortion. Many drew parallels between the novel and Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. Irving's next novel was A Prayer for Owen Meany, another New England family epic about religion set in a New England boarding school. The novel was influenced by The Tin Drum by Günter Grass, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the works of Dickens. In Owen Meany, Irving for the first time examined the consequences of the Vietnam War—particularly mandatory conscription, which Irving avoided because he was a married father when of age for the draft. Owen Meany became Irving's best selling book since Garp, and is now a frequent feature on high school English reading lists.

Irving returned to Random House for his next book, A Son of the Circus (1995). Arguably his most complicated and difficult book, and a departure from many of the themes and location settings in his previous novels, it was dismissed by critics but became a national bestseller on the strength of Irving's reputation for fashioning literate, engrossing page-turners. Irving returned in 1998 with A Widow for One Year, which was named a New York Times Notable Book.

Irving has had four novels reach number one on the bestseller list of The New York Times: The Hotel New Hampshire (September 27, 1981), which stayed number one for seven weeks, and was in the top 15 for over 27 weeks, The Cider House Rules (June 16, 1985), A Widow for One Year (June 14, 1998), and The Fourth Hand (July 29, 2001).

In 1999, after nearly ten years in development, Irving's screenplay for The Cider House Rules was made into a film directed by Lasse Hallström, starring Michael Caine, Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, and Delroy Lindo. Irving also has a cameo appearance as the disapproving stationmaster. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and earned Irving an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Soon after, Irving wrote My Movie Business, a memoir about his involvement in creating the film version of The Cider House Rules. After its publication, Irving appeared on the CBC Television program Hot Type to promote the book. During the interview, Irving criticized bestselling American author Tom Wolfe, saying Wolfe “can’t write,” and that his writing makes Irving gag. Wolfe appeared on Hot Type later that year, calling Irving, Norman Mailer and John Updike his “three stooges” who were panicked by his newest novel, A Man in Full.

When The Fourth Hand was published in 2001 it became a bestseller. A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound, a children's story originally included in A Widow for One Year, was published as a book with illustrations by Tatjana Hauptmann in 2004. Irving's novel, Until I Find You, was released on July 12, 2005.

On June 28, 2005, The New York Times published an article revealing that Until I Find You contains two specifically personal elements about his life that he has never before discussed publicly: his sexual abuse at age 11 by an older woman, and the recent entrance in his life of his biological father's family.

In his most recent novel, Last Night in Twisted River, published in 2009, Irving's central character is a novelist with "a career that teasingly follows Irving's own," as one journalist put it) In addition to his novels, he has also published Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, a collection of his writings including a brief memoir and unpublished short fiction, My Movie Business, an account of the protracted process of bringing The Cider House Rules to the big screen, and The Imaginary Girlfriend, a short memoir focusing on writing and wrestling. In 2010, Irving revealed that he and Tod "Kip" Williams, director and writer of The Door in the Floor, are co-writing a screenplay for an adaptation of The Fourth Hand.

Recent

In recent years, his three most highly regarded novels, The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and A Prayer for Owen Meany, have been published in Modern Library editions. Owen Meany was adapted into the film Simon Birch (Irving required that the title, and character names, be changed because the screenplay's story was "markedly different" from that of the novel; Irving is on record as having enjoyed the film, however). In 2004, a portion of A Widow for One Year was adapted into The Door in the Floor, starring Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger.

In a New York Magazine interview in 2009, Irving stated that he has begun work on a new novel, which will be his thirteenth. It is based, in part, on a speech from a play by Shakespeare, "Richard II." The novel is titled, "In One Person." In Fall 2010, in "The Vermont Quarterly," "The Daily Free Press," "The Republican" and "The Harvard Crimson," transcripts of Irving's Q&As; while making appearances at several New England colleges revealed the following: "In One Person" will have a first-person view point, Irving's first such narrative since A Prayer For Owen Meany (Irving decided to change the first-person narrative of Until I Find You to third person less than a year before publication); "In One Person" will feature a 60 year-old, bisexual protagonist named William, looking back on his life in the 1950s and '60s; William falls in love with a transgender, a female librarian, and spends time studying in Vienna, where he falls in love with an American girl trying to become a professional opera singer. The novel will share a similar theme (and concern) with The World According to Garp, which was, in part, says Irving, about, "People who hate you for your sexual differences."

Recurring themes

Recurring themes, symbols or character types in Irving's work include New England, prostitutes, wrestling, Vienna, Iowa, bears, deadly accidents, a main character and/or supporting characters who are writers of some sort (novelists, journalists, children's book authors, diarists, family historians, etc.), a main character dealing with an absent or unknown parent, a main character who is involved in film making, sexual relationships between young men and older women and other variations in sexual relations. Severing of body parts (tongue, finger, other) appears in several novels. Oddly, although they only play a significant part (symbolically and narratively) in three of Irving's novels ("Bears, "Garp" and "Hotel"), and matter-of-fact part in two others, most interviewers and readers seem to think that bears are a commonly recurring metaphor in his novels. In fact, the role of the writer (novelist, essayist, journalist, diarist, historian, etc.) is the most oft-used symbol and/or character-type in John Irving's oeuvre.

Irving has often used the literary technique of a story within a story.

Bibliography

Setting Free the Bears (1968)

The Water-Method Man (1972)

The 158-Pound Marriage (1974)

The World According to Garp (1978)

The Hotel New Hampshire (1981)

The Cider House Rules (1985)

A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)

A Son of the Circus (1994)

The Imaginary Girlfriend (non-fiction, 1995)

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (collection, 1996)

A Widow for One Year (1998)

My Movie Business (non-fiction, 1999)

(1999)

The Fourth Hand (2001)

A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound (2004)

Until I Find You (2005)

Last Night in Twisted River (2009)

In One Person (2013)

Personal life

In 1964 Irving married Shyla Leary, whom he had met at Harvard in 1963 while taking a summer course in German, before traveling to Vienna. They had two sons, Colin and Brendan, and divorced in the early 1980s. In 1987 he married Janet Turnbull, who had been his publisher at Bantam-Seal Books and is now one of his literary agents. They have a teenage son, Everett. but survived (an incident incorporated into the novel The Cider House Rules). Irving did not find out about his father's heroism until 1981.

Irving was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007, and subsequently had a radical prostatectomy.

Quotes

"The building of the architecture of a novel—the craft of it—is something I never tire of."

"In this way, in increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us—not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss."

"I spend about two to three months planning the path of the book in my head before I write the last sentence of the novel. From there I work back to the beginning. From the day I think of the last sentence to the book's publication date, not more than a semicolon has changed."

[on his process for writing novels:] "I can't imagine what the first sentence is, I can't imagine where I want the reader to enter the story, if I don't know where the reader is going to leave the story. So once I know what the last thing the reader hears is, I can work my way backward, like following a roadmap in reverse."

"A reader told me recently, in London, said that ‘well, I read that you write the last sentence first, so I always read your last sentence first.’ And I said, ‘oh, no, you're not supposed to do that.’"

"Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student—and not a good one—and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved."

"When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it - rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened."

"I feel more a part of the wrestling community than I feel I belong to the community of arts and letters. Why? Because wrestling requires even more dedication than writing because wrestling represents the most difficult and rewarding objective that I have ever dedicated myself to; because wrestling and wrestling coaches are among the most disciplined and self-sacrificing people I have ever known."

"As a child, when something is denied you—when there is a subject that is never spoken of—you pretend it's for the best. But when I was denied information about someone as important as my actual father, I compensated for this loss by inventing him."

"The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that is uncontrollable—some element of the world that is essentially random and out of control."

"When I feel like being a director, I write a novel."

"Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it's still going to be a comic novel."

(What he calls his incredibly popular novel "The World According to Garp"): "An artfully-disguised soap opera."

(In reference to Vermont's Act 60): "This is Marxism. It's leveling everything by decimating what works ... It's that vindictive 'We've suffered, and now we're going to take money from your kid and watch you squirm'... There's a minority which is an open target in this country which no one protects, and that's rich people"

"I don't go out of my way to find or invent things that are bizarre. It just seems to me that I notice more and more how commonplace the bizarre is."

"I write repeatedly—against my will—of those things I fear most happening. Losing a loved one, losing a parent, losing a child. I'm in terror of losing a child. It's never happened to me, but I am clearly compelled to write about it over and over again, and in a way I think, psychologically at least, this says more about me autobiographically as a novelist than the fact that Danny Angel goes to the Iowa Writers Workshop and has Kurt Vonnegut as a teacher, which I also did."

Further reading

Book Magazine, July/August 2001 ("John Irving Wrestles Fate" by Dorman T. Shindler)

Pages Magazine, July/August 2005 ("The Creative Crucible" by Dorman T. Shindler)

References

External links

Literary Encyclopedia

John Irving Is God (information, including large bibliography)

Becoming John Irving

Academy of Achievement biography (with links to interview and photo gallery)

The New York Times — Featured Author: John Irving

John Irving interviewed by Jonathan Derbyshire on New Statesman about his book "Last Night in Twisted River"

Category:1942 births Category:Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners Category:American feminist writers Category:American novelists Category:American screenwriters Category:Living people Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Category:Mount Holyoke College faculty Category:National Book Award winners Category:People from Exeter, New Hampshire Category:Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Category:Writers from New Hampshire Category:University of Iowa alumni Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Category:University of Pittsburgh people Category:21st-century novelists

Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
Name	Harlan Ellison
Caption	Vol.2 cover to a collection of stories illustrated by Dark Horse Comics
Pseudonym	Cordwainer BirdNalrah NosilleSley HarsonPaul Merchant
Birthname	Harlan Jay Ellison
Birthdate	May 27, 1934
Birthplace	Cleveland, Ohio
Occupation	Author, screenwriter
Nationality	American
Genre	Speculative fiction, Science fiction, Fantasy, Crime, Mystery, Horror, film and television criticism, essayist
Movement	New Wave
Influences	Edgar Allan PoeTheodore SturgeonFranz KafkaJorge Luis BorgesFrederic ProkoschJim ThompsonGerald KershCornell WoolrichFritz LeiberIsaac Asimov
Influenced	Neil GaimanOctavia E. ButlerDan SimmonsJames Cameron
Website	http://harlanellison.com/home.htm

Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.

His published works include over 1,000 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. He was editor and anthologist for two ground-breaking science fiction anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions. Ellison has won numerous awards - more awards for imaginative literature than any other living author - including multiple Hugos, Nebulas and Edgars.

Early life and career

Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 27, 1934. His Jewish-American family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949, following his father's death. As a child, he had a brief career performing in minstrel shows. He frequently ran away from home, taking an array of odd jobs—including, by age eighteen, "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina, short order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House".

Ellison attended Ohio State University for 18 months (1951–53) before being expelled. He has said that the expulsion was a result of his hitting a professor who had denigrated his writing ability, and that over the next forty-odd years he had sent that professor a copy of every story he published.

Ellison moved to New York City in 1955 to pursue a writing career, primarily in science fiction. Over the next two years, he published more than 100 short stories and articles. He married Charlotte Stein in 1956 but they divorced four years later. In 1957, Ellison decided to write about youth gangs. To research the issue, he joined a street gang in the Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York area, under the name "Cheech Beldone". His subsequent writings on the subject include the novel, Web of the City/Rumble, and the collection, The Deadly Streets, and also compose part of his memoir, Memos from Purgatory.

Ellison was drafted into the United States Army, serving from 1957 to 1959. In 1960, he returned to New York, living at 95 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Moving to Chicago, Ellison wrote for William Hamling's Rogue magazine. As a book editor at Hamling's Regency Books, Hamling published novels and anthologies by such writers as B. Traven, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Bloch and Philip José Farmer, Clarence Cooper Jr and Ellison.

In the late 1950s, Ellison wrote a number of erotic stories, such as "God Bless the Ugly Virgin" and "Tramp", which were later reprinted in Los Angeles-based girlie magazines. That was his first use of the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird. He used the name in July and August 1957, in two journals, each of which had accepted two of his stories. In each journal, one story was published under the name Harlan Ellison, and the other under Cordwainer Bird. Later, as discussed in the Controversy section below, he used the pseudonym when he disagreed with the use or editing of his work.

In 1961, Ellison married Billie Joyce Sanders, his second wife, but they later divorced.

Hollywood and beyond

Ellison moved to California in 1962, and subsequently began to sell his writing to Hollywood. He wrote the screenplay for The Oscar, starring Stephen Boyd and Elke Sommer. Ellison also sold scripts to many television shows: The Flying Nun, Burke's Law, Route 66, The Outer Limits, , The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Cimarron Strip and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

During the late 1960s, Ellison wrote a column about television for the Los Angeles Free Press. Titled "The Glass Teat", the column addressed political and social issues and their portrayal on television at the time. The columns were gathered into two collections, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.

He was a participant in the 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Also in 1965, he married his third wife, Lory Patrick, but they later divorced.

In 1966, in an article that Esquire magazine would later name as the best magazine piece ever written, the journalist Gay Talese wrote about the goings-on around the enigmatic Frank Sinatra. The article, entitled "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold", briefly describes a clash between the young Harlan Ellison and Frank Sinatra, when the crooner took exception to Ellison's boots during a billiards game.

Ellison continued to publish short fiction and nonfiction pieces in various publications, including some of his best known stories. "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (1965) is a celebration of civil disobedience against repressive authority. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967) is an allegory of Hell, where five humans are tormented by an all-knowing computer throughout eternity. The story was the basis of a 1995 computer game, with Ellison participating in the game's design and providing the voice of the god-computer AM. "A Boy and His Dog" examines the nature of friendship and love in a violent, post-apocalyptic world. It was made into the 1975 film of the same name, starring Don Johnson.

In 1976, Ellison married his fourth wife, Lori Horowitz. They later divorced. On September 7, 1986, Ellison married Susan Toth (his fifth wife), whom he had met in Scotland the year before.

He also edited the influential science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions (1967), which collected stories commissioned by Ellison, accompanied by his commentary-laden biographical sketches of the authors. He challenged the authors to write stories at the edge of the genre. Many of the stories went beyond the traditional boundaries of science fiction pioneered by respected old school editors such as John W. Campbell, Jr. As an editor, Ellison was influenced and inspired by experimentation in the popular literature of the time, such as the beats. A sequel, Again Dangerous Visions, was published in 1972. A third volume, The Last Dangerous Visions, has been repeatedly postponed (see Controversy).

Ellison served as creative consultant to the science fiction TV series The Twilight Zone (1980s version) and Babylon 5. As a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), he has voice-over credits for shows including The Pirates of Dark Water, Mother Goose and Grimm, Space Cases, Phantom 2040, and Babylon 5, as well as making an onscreen appearance in the Babylon 5 episode "The Face of the Enemy".

Ellison has commented on a great many movies and television programs (see The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat for television criticism and commentary; see Harlan Ellison's Watching for movie criticism and commentary), both negatively and positively.

He does all his writing on a manual Olympia typewriter, and has a substantial distaste for personal computers and most of the Internet.

For two years, beginning in 1986, Ellison took over as host of the Friday-night radio program, Hour 25 on Pacifica Radio station KPFK-FM, Los Angeles, after the death of Mike Hodel, the show's founder and original host. Ellison had been a frequent and favorite guest on the long-running program. In one episode, he brought in his typewriter and proceeded to write a new short story live on the air (he titled the story "Hitler Painted Roses"). Hour 25 also served as the inspiration for his story, "The Hour That Stretches".

Ellison's 1992 short story "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" was selected for inclusion in the 1993 edition of The Best American Short Stories.

Ellison was hired as a writer for Walt Disney Studios, but was fired on his first day after being overheard by Roy O. Disney in the studio commissary joking about making a pornographic animated film featuring Disney characters. He recounted this incident in his book Stalking the Nightmare, as part 3 of an essay titled "The 3 Most Important Things in Life".

Ellison has provided vocal narration to numerous audiobooks, both of his own writing and others. Ellison has helped narrate books by authors such as Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Williamson and Terry Pratchett.

Ellison lives in Los Angeles, California with Susan, his fifth wife. In 1994, he suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized for quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery.

He had his own name trademarked in 2005, registered by The Kilimanjaro Corporation, which Ellison owns, and under which all his work is copyrighted.

Ellison recently voiced himself as a character on the show Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. In the Episode titled "The Shrieking Madness".

Pseudonyms

Ellison has on occasion used the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird to alert members of the public to situations in which he feels his creative contribution to a project has been mangled beyond repair by others, typically Hollywood producers or studios (see also Alan Smithee). The first such work to which he signed the name was "The Price of Doom," an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (though it was misspelled as Cord Wainer Bird in the credits). An episode of Burke's Law ("Who Killed Alex Debbs?") accredited to Ellison contains a character given this name.

The "Cordwainer Bird" moniker is a tribute to fellow SF writer Paul M. A. Linebarger, better known by his pen name, Cordwainer Smith. The origin of the word "cordwainer" is shoemaker (from working with cordovan leather for shoes). The term used by Linebarger was meant to imply the industriousness of the pulp author. Ellison has said, in interviews and in his writing, that his version of the pseudonym was meant to mean "a shoemaker for birds". Since he has used the pseudonym mainly for works he wants to distance himself from, it may be understood to mean that "this work is for the birds" or that it is of as much use as shoes to a bird. Stephen King once said he thought that it meant that Ellison was giving people who mangled his work a literary version of "the bird" (given credence by Ellison himself in his own essay titled "Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto", describing his experience with the Starlost television series).

The Bird moniker has since become a character in one of Ellison's own stories, not without some prompting. In his book Strange Wine, Ellison explains the origins of the Bird and goes on to state that Philip Jose Farmer wrote Cordwainer into the Wold Newton family the latter writer had developed. The thought of such a whimsical object lesson being related to such lights as Savage, the Shadow, Tarzan, and all the other pulp heroes prompted Ellison to play with the concept, resulting in The New York Review Of Bird, in which an annoyed Bird uncovers the darker secrets of then begins pulpish slaughter of the New York Literary Establishment.

Controversies

Temperament

Ellison has a reputation for being abrasive and argumentative. He has generally agreed with this assessment, and a dust jacket from one of Ellison's books described him as "possibly the most contentious person on Earth". Ellison has filed numerous grievance filings and lawsuit attempts that have been characterized as both justifiable and frivolous. His friend Isaac Asimov noted, "Harlan uses his gifts for colorful and variegated invective on those who irritate him — intrusive fans, obdurate editors, callous publishers, offensive strangers." Another friend, writer Robert Bloch, spoke at a roast for Ellison, saying that other people take infinite pains; "Harlan gives them."

He appeared on Politically Incorrect, and had a regular spot on the Sci-Fi Buzz program on the fledgling Sci Fi Channel. Ellison's segments were broadcast from 1994 to 1997. Some transcripts are available. Ellison was also a frequent visitor on Tom Snyder's The Tomorrow Show in the late 1970s and The Late Late Show in the 1990s.

Aggiecon I

In 1969, Ellison was Guest of Honor at Texas A&M; University's first science fiction convention, Aggiecon, where he reportedly referred to the Corps of Cadets as "...America's next generation of Nazis...", inspired in part by the continuing Vietnam War. Although the university was no longer solely a military school (as of 1965), the studentry was predominantly made up of cadet members. Between Ellison's anti-military remarks and a food-fight that broke out in the ballroom of the hotel where the gathering was held (although according to Ellison in 2000, the food-fight actually started in a Denny's because the staff disappeared and they could not get their check), the school's administration almost refused to approve the science fiction convention the next year, and no guest of honor was invited for the next two Aggiecons. However, Ellison was subsequently invited back as Guest of Honor for Aggiecon V (1974) and Aggiecon XXXI (2000).

The Starlost

The screenplay for his projected television series The Starlost was also given a Writers Guild Award, though the actual series, produced in 1973-74, was so altered by the producers that Ellison had his name removed from the credits and replaced with the pseudonym "Cordwainer Bird" (see above).

Star Trek

Ellison has repeatedly criticized how Star Trek creator and producer Gene Roddenberry (and others) rewrote his original script for the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". Ellison's original work included a subplot involving drug dealing aboard the Enterprise and other elements that Roddenberry rejected. Despite his objections, he kept his legal name on the result instead of using his "Cordwainer Bird" nom-de-plume. Ellison's original script was eventually reprinted in the 1976 collection Six Science Fiction Plays, edited by Roger Elwood. In 1995, White Wolf Publishing released Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever, a book that included the original script, several story treatments, and a long introductory essay by Ellison explaining his position on what he called a "fatally inept treatment". Both versions won prestigious awards.

On March 13, 2009, Ellison sued CBS Paramount Television, seeking payment of 25% of net receipts from merchandising, publishing, and other income from the episode since 1967; the suit also names the Writers Guild of America for allegedly failing to act on Ellison's behalf. On October 23, 2009, Variety magazine reported that a settlement had been reached.

The Last Dangerous Visions

The Last Dangerous Visions (TLDV), the third volume of Ellison's anthology series, has become science fiction's most famous unpublished book. It was originally announced for publication in 1973, but has not seen print to date. Nearly 150 writers (many now dead) submitted works for the volume. In 1993 Ellison threatened to sue New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) for publishing "Himself in Anachron", a short story written by Cordwainer Smith and sold to Ellison for the book by his widow, but later reached an amicable settlement.

British science fiction author Christopher Priest critiqued Ellison's editorial practices in an article entitled "The Book on the Edge of Forever", later expanded into a book. Priest documented a half-dozen unfulfilled promises by Ellison to publish TLDV within a year of the statement. Priest claims he submitted a story at Ellison's request which Ellison retained for several months until Priest withdrew the story and demanded that Ellison return the manuscript. Ellison has a record of fulfilling obligations in other instances (though sometimes, as with Harlan Ellison's Hornbook for Mirage Press, several decades after the contract was signed), including to writers whose stories he solicited.

I, Robot

Shortly after the release of Star Wars (1977), Ben Roberts contacted Ellison to develop a script based on Isaac Asimov's I, Robot short story collection for Warner Brothers. In a meeting with studio head Robert Shapiro, Ellison concluded that Shapiro was commenting on the script without having read it, and accused him of having the "intellectual capacity of an artichoke". Shortly afterwards, Ellison was dropped from the project. Without Ellison, the film came to a dead end, because subsequent scripts were unsatisfactory to potential directors. After a change in studio heads, Warner allowed Ellison's script to be serialized in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and in book form. The 2004 film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, has no connection to Ellison's script.

Allegations of assault on Charles Platt

In the 1980s, Ellison allegedly publicly assaulted author and critic Charles Platt at the Nebula Awards banquet. Platt did not pursue legal action against Ellison, and the two men later signed a "non-aggression pact", promising never to discuss the incident again nor to have any contact with one another. Platt claims that Ellison has often publicly boasted about the incident.

Lawsuit against Fantagraphics

On September 20, 2006, Ellison sued Fantagraphics, a comic book publisher, claiming they had defamed him in their book Comics As Art (We told you so).

The book recounts the history of Fantagraphics and discussed a lawsuit that resulted from a 1980 Ellison interview with Fantagraphics' industry news magazine, The Comics Journal. In this interview Ellison referred to comic book writer Michael Fleisher, calling him "bugfuck" and "derange-o". Fleisher lost his libel suit against Ellison and Fantagraphics on December 9, 1986.

Ellison, after reading unpublished drafts of the book on Fantagraphics's website, believed that he had been defamed by several anecdotes related to this incident. He sued in the Superior Court for the State of California, in Santa Monica. Fantagraphics attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed. In their motion to dismiss, Fantagraphics argued that the statements were both their personal opinions and generally believed to be true anecdotes.

On February 12, 2007, the presiding judge ruled against Fantagraphics' anti-SLAPP motion for dismissal. On June 29, 2007, Ellison claimed that the litigation had been resolved pending Fantagraphics' removal of all references to the case from their website. No money or apologies changed hands in the settlement as posted on August 17, 2007.

With Connie Willis at Hugo Awards 2006

On August 26, 2006, during the 64th World Science Fiction Convention, Ellison grabbed award-winning novelist Connie Willis' breast while on stage at the Hugo Awards ceremony. Ellen Datlow described this as "a schtick of Harlan acting like a baby". Patrick Nielsen Hayden described this as "pathetic and nasty and sad and most of us didn't want to watch it".

Ellison responded three days later, writing, "I was unaware of any problem proceeding from my intendedly-childlike grabbing of Connie Willis's left breast, as she was exhorting me to behave." He also posted that "I'm glad, at last, to have transcended your expectations. I stand naked and defenseless before your absolutely correct chiding." On August 31 he posted: "Would you be slightly less self-righteous and chiding if I told you there was NO grab…there was NO grope…there was NO fondle...there was the slightest touch. A shtick, a gag between friends, absolutely NO sexual content. How about it, Mark: after playing straight man to Connie's very frequently demeaning public jackanapery toward me—including treating me with considerable disrespect at the Grand Master Awards Weekend, where she put a chair down in front of her lectern as Master of Ceremonies, and made me sit there like a naughty child throughout her long 'roast' of my life and career—for more than 25 years, without once complaining, whaddaya think, Mark, am I even a leetle bit entitled to think that Connie likes to play, and geez ain't it sad that as long as SHE sets the rules for play, and I'm the village idiot, she's cool … but gawd forbid I change the rules and play MY way for a change …", and complained that Willis had not called him to discuss the matter.

Copyright suits

Ellison claimed that James Cameron's film The Terminator drew from material from Ellison's "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand" episodes of The Outer Limits. Hemdale, the production company and the distributor Orion Pictures, settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, "acknowledging" the work of Ellison at the end of the film. Cameron has labeled Ellison's claim a "nuisance suit" and referred to Ellison as a "parasite who can kiss my ass."

On April 24, 2000 Ellison sued Stephen Robertson for posting four stories to the newsgroup "alt.binaries.e-book" without authorization. The other defendants were AOL and RemarQ, internet service providers whose only involvement was running servers hosting the newsgroup. Ellison claimed that they had failed to stop the alleged copyright infringement in accordance with the "Notice and Takedown Procedure" outlined in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Robertson and RemarQ first settled with Ellison, then with AOL in June 2004 under conditions that were not made public. Since those settlements Ellison has initiated legal action and/or takedown notices against more than 240 people who have distributed his writings on the Internet, saying, "If you put your hand in my pocket, you’ll drag back six inches of bloody stump".

Bibliography

Novels and novellas

Web of the City (1958) (originally published as Rumble)

The Man With Nine Lives (1960) (as this novel has never been reprinted there is no edition in existence bearing the author's preferred title The Sound of a Scythe)

Spider Kiss (1961) (originally published as Rockabilly)

Doomsman (1967)

"A Boy and his Dog" (1969) (made into a film)

The Starlost#1: Phoenix Without Ashes (1975) (adaptation by Edward Bryant of Ellison's TV pilot script)

All the Lies That are My Life (1980) (later included in the author's 1980 collection Shatterday)

Run for the Stars (1991) (a 1957 novella here republished in a preferred text edition as part of a Tor Double)

Mefisto in Onyx (1993) (later included in the author's 1997 collection Slippage)

Short story collections

A Touch of Infinity (1958)

The Deadly Streets (1958)

Sex Gang (1959) (as by Paul Merchant)

Children of the Streets (1961) (originally published as The Juvies)

Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation (1961)

Ellison Wonderland (1962) (also published as Earthman, Go Home!) Ellison also refers to his home in Sherman Oaks, California as "Ellison Wonderland."

Paingod and Other Delusions (1965)

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967)

From the Land of Fear (1967)

Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled (1968)

The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969)

Over the Edge (1970)

Partners in Wonder (1971) (collaborations with 14 other writers)

Approaching Oblivion (1974)

Deathbird Stories (1975)

No Doors, No Windows (1975)

Strange Wine (1978)

Shatterday (1980)(reissued 2007 by Edgeworks Abbey/Tachyon Publications)

Stalking the Nightmare (1982)

Angry Candy (1988)

Mind Fields (1994) (33 stories inspired by the art of Jacek Yerka)

Slippage (1997)

Troublemakers (2001) (collection produced for the Young Adult market and featuring, for the most part, previously collected material)

Retrospectives and omnibus collections

Alone Against Tomorrow: a 10-Year Survey (1971) (published in the UK in two volumes as All the Sounds of Fear (1973) and The Time of the Eye (1974))

The Fantasies of Harlan Ellison (1979) (contains Paingod and Other Delusions (1965) and I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967))

(1987) (edited by Terry Dowling with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont)

Dreams With Sharp Teeth (1991) (contains I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967), Deathbird Stories (1975) and Shatterday (1980))

Edgeworks. 1 (1996) (contains Over the Edge (1970) and An Edge in My Voice (1985))

Edgeworks. 2 (1996) (contains Spider Kiss (1961) and Stalking the Nightmare (1982))

Edgeworks. 3 (1997) (contains The Harlan Ellison Hornbook (1990) and Harlan Ellison's Movie (1990))

Edgeworks. 4 (1997) (contains Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled (1968) and The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969))

(2001) (edited by Terry Dowling with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont)

Note: the White Wolf Edgeworks Series was originally scheduled to consist of 31 titles reprinted over the course of 20 omnibus volumes. Although an ISBN was created for Edgeworks. 5 (1998), which was to contain both Glass Teat books, this title never appeared. The series is noted for its numerous typographical errors.

Nonfiction

Memos from Purgatory (1961)

The Glass Teat (1970) (essays of opinion on television, 1968–1970)

The Other Glass Teat (1975) (further essays of opinion on television, 1970–1972)

The Book of Ellison (1978) (edited by Andrew Porter)

Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed (1984) (edited by Marty Clark)

An Edge in My Voice (1985)

Harlan Ellison's Watching (1989)(reissued 2008 by M Press)

The Harlan Ellison Hornbook (1990)

Published screenplays and teleplays

I, Robot (1994) (with Isaac Asimov, illustrated by Mark Zug)

The City on the Edge of Forever (1996) (Star Trek episode, original screenplay, with commentary. For an in-depth review of this book see . This script was also published in Six Science Fiction Plays (1976) edited by Roger Elwood)

Harlan Ellison's Movie (1990) (unproduced feature-length screenplay serialised in Ellison's weekly newspaper column The Harlan Ellison Hornbook and collected in the omnibus volume Edgeworks. 3 (1996))

Flintlock (1987) (unproduced pilot teleplay for a proposed 1972 TV series based on James Coburn's character in Our Man Flint, published in both editions of the retrospective volume The Essential Ellison (1987, 2001))

The Whimper of Whipped Dogs (1975) (teleplay produced in the TV series The Young Lawyers, serialised in Ellison's weekly newspaper column The Glass Teat and collected in The Other Glass Teat (1975); unrelated to Ellison's later 1973 short story, "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs")

The Whimper of Whipped Dogs (unfinished screenplay based on Ellison's 1974 short story of the same title as, but completely unrelated to, the Young Lawyers teleplay referenced above; three treatments of the opening sequence were published in the June 1988 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and later appeared in Harlan Ellison's Watching (1989))

Soldier, produced for The Outer Limits in 1964; published alongside the short story on which it was based in his 1967 collection From the Land of Fear.

See also The Starlost#1: Phoenix without Ashes (1975), the novelization by Edward Bryant of the teleplay for the pilot episode of The Starlost, which includes a lengthy afterword by Ellison describing what happened during production of the series.

Anthologies edited

Dangerous Visions (1967) (also issued as a three-volume paperback edition)

(1968)

Again, Dangerous Visions (1972) (also issued as a two-volume paperback edition)

(1985) (an experiment in collaborative science-fictional world-building, featuring contributions by Hal Clement, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Robert Silverberg, Theodore Sturgeon, and others)

Selected short stories

"A Boy and His Dog"

""

"The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World"

"The Deathbird"

"The Diagnosis of Dr. D'arqueAngel"

"The Dragon on the Bookshelf"

"From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet"

"Grail"

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" Made into CD-ROM Game, circa 1995-97

"Jeffty Is Five"

"Knox"

"The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World"

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman

"Shatterday" - adapted as an episode of the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone

"Shattered Like a Glass Goblin"

"Soldier": filmed as an Outer Limits episode. The film The Terminator had sufficient similarities to the story that later prints of the film acknowledge Ellison.

"Try a Dull Knife"

"The Whimper of Whipped Dogs"

Recent uncollected stories

Since the publication of the author's last collection of previously uncollected stories, Slippage (1997), Ellison has published the following works of fiction:

Objects of Desire in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear (1999) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction October/November issue)

The Toad Prince or, Sex Queen of the Martian Pleasure-Domes (1999) (Amazing Stories issue 600)

From A to Z, In the Sarsaparilla Alphabet (2001) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction February issue)

Incognita, Inc. (2001) (Hemispheres, the Inflight Magazine of United Airlines January issue)

Never Send to Know for Whom the Lettuce Wilts (2002) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction January issue)

Goodbye to All That (2002) (McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales anthology edited by Michael Chabon)

Loose Cannon, or Rubber Duckies from Space (2004) (Amazing Stories issue 603)

(2006) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction September issue)

(2010) (Realms of Fantasy February issue)

;Notes

Objects... was later included in the 2001 revised and expanded edition of The Essential Ellison.

From A to Z... was later scheduled to be included in Deathbird Stories: 25th Anniversary Edition. This edition never appeared.

The Toad Prince,... is a novelette which, according to the author's afterword, was originally written in the early 1990s.

Incognita, Inc. was reprinted the same year, in Realms of Fantasy (August 2001). It was also reprinted in 2001 in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and most recently in 2007 in Summer Chills edited by Stephen Jones.

Never Send to Know... is a heavily revised, expanded and retitled version of an Ellison story originally published in 1956. It was also included in the 2001 reprint collection Troublemakers.

Goodbye to All That was originally written in the mid-90s for the Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor comic series, but was not included at the time due to the series ceasing publication. It was finally incorporated into the series in March 2007 as part of Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor: Volume Two.

Loose Cannon is a 200 word piece of flash fiction accompanied by an 800 word introduction by Neil Gaiman as part of the magazine's series of 1,000 words inspired by a painting.

Luck be a Lady Tonight is an article in which Ellison sets down the challenge of adapting an idea of his into a short story; an idea which Ellison himself was unable over the years to turn into a work of fiction. Three writers were ultimately commissioned by the magazine's editor and their stories appeared in the same issue alongside Ellison's essay of proposal.

Graphic story adaptations

Several stories have been adapted and collected into comic book stories for Dark Horse Comics. They can be found in two volumes. Each issue of the comic included a new original story based on the cover.

New stories (partial list)

* "The Museum on Cyclops Avenue"

* "Chatting with Anubis"

Computer games

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Audio recordings (selection)

On The Road With Ellison Volume 1 - released 1983, reissued 2001 on Deep Shag Records

- released 1999 on Fantastic Audio

- released 2001 on Fantastic Audio

On The Road With Ellison Volume 2 - released 2004 on Deep Shag Records

On The Road With Ellison Volume 3 - released 2007 on Deep Shag Records

- released 2009 on Blackstone Audio

On The Road With Ellison Volume 4 - released 2010 on Deep Shag Records

Memoirs

On the May 30, 2008 broadcast of the PRI radio program Studio 360, Ellison announced that he had signed with a "major publisher" to produce his memoirs. The tentative title is Working Without A Net. In the television show Babylon 5, for which Ellison worked as a creative consultant, in the year 2258 the fictional character Susan Ivanova is once seen reading, and laughing to, a book titled Working Without A Net, written by Harlan Ellison (TKO).

Contemporary Publications

Currently the print-on-demand publisher Edgeworks Abbey/E-Reads publishes 32 titles of Ellison's, which are available through Barnes & Noble's online store, as well as the online stores of the publisher and also Amazon.

"I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream" was included in American Fantastic Tales, volume II (from the 1940s to now), edited by Peter Straub and published by the prestigious Library of America in 2009. The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century edited by Tony Hillerman and Otto Penzler (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) included Ellison's "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs." In October 2010, a special collection was issued by MadCon, a convention in Wisconsin at which Ellison was the guest of honor. The hardcover book is entitled, (Garcia Publishing Services, 2010). In addition to including "How Interesting: A Tiny Man", Ellison's newest short story (previously published in "Realms of Fantasy" magazine), it also included "'Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man", "Some Frightening Films of the Forties" (a never before reprinted essay), an illustrated bibliography of Ellison's fiction books by Tim Richmond, an article by Robert T. and Frank Garcia on Ellisons television work, an appreciation/essay by Dark Horse Comics publisher Michael Richardson, an article about Deep Shag's audio recordings of Ellison speaking engagements by Michael Reed, a 6-page B&W; gallery of covers by Leo and Diane Dillon, a two-page Neil Gaiman-drawn cartoon and an official biography. In December 2010, Subterranean Press is releasing an expanded, revised, updated (and illustrated) version of Deathbird Stories, which will feature new introductory material, new afterwords, and additional stories (the never-before-collected, "From A to Z, in the Sarsaparilla Alphabet", "Scartaris, June 28th", and "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore").

Dreams with Sharp Teeth (Film)

On Thursday, April 19, 2007, Dreams with Sharp Teeth, a film by the producers of Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, received its first public screening at the Writers Guild Theatre in Los Angeles. This documentary, a profile of Ellison and his work, was released on DVD by New Video Group on May 26, 2009.

Awards

Ellison has won the Hugo Award eight and a half times; the Nebula Award three times; the Bram Stoker Award, presented by the Horror Writers Association, five times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996); the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice; the Georges Méliès fantasy film award twice.

He was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by International PEN, the international writers' union. In 1990, Ellison was honored by International PEN for continuing commitment to artistic freedom and the battle against censorship. In 1998, he was awarded the "Defender of Liberty" award by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

In March 1998, the National Women's Committee of Brandeis University honored him with their 1998 Words, Wit, Wisdom award. In 1990, Ellison was honored by International PEN for continuing commitment to artistic freedom and the battle against censorship.

Ellison was named 2002's winner of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal's "Distinguished Skeptic Award", in recognition of his contributions to science and critical thinking. Ellison was presented with the award at the Skeptics Convention in Burbank, California, June 22, 2002.

In December 2009, Ellison was nominated for a Grammy award in the category Best Spoken Word Album For Children for his reading of Through the Looking-Glass And What Alice Found There for Blackstone Audio, Inc. This was his second Grammy nomination, the first coming in the late 1970s, for a self-produced reading (released via the Harlan Ellison Record Collection) of "Jeffty if Five."

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films (USA)

Golden Scroll (Best Writing - Career 1976)

Audio Publishers Association

The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcript of the 1912 Senatorial Investigation (Best "Multi-Voiced Presentation", 1999)

City of Darkness (Best Solo Narration, 1999)

Best American Short Stories

The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore (included in the 1993 anthology)

Bradbury award

The Bradbury Award was given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000 to Harlan Ellison and Yuri Rasovsky for the radio series 2000X.

Bram Stoker Award

The Essential Ellison (best collection, 1987)

Harlan Ellison's Watching (best non-fiction, 1989 — tie)

Mefisto in Onyx (best novella, 1993 — tie)

Chatting With Anubis (best short story, 1995)

Lifetime Achievement Award, 1995

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (best other media — audio, 1999)

Edgar Allan Poe Award

The Whimper of Whipped Dogs (best short story, 1974)

Soft Monkey (best short story, 1988)

Hugo Award

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman (best short fiction, 1966)

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (best short story, 1968)

The City on the Edge of Forever (best dramatic presentation, 1968)

Dangerous Visions (special award, 1968)

The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (best short story, 1969)

Again, Dangerous Visions (special award for excellence in anthologizing, 1972)

The Deathbird (best novelette, 1974)

Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W (best novelette, 1975)

A Boy and His Dog (film—Best Dramatic Presentation, 1976. The Hugo was originally given to the producers, but after Ellison complained that as author of the original story on which L. Q. Jones's screenplay was based, he deserved to share in the award. But no extra statuette could be found, so he was given the base of one to mollify him, which he calls his "half Hugo.")

Jeffty Is Five (best short story, 1978)

Paladin of the Lost Hour (best novelette, 1986)

Locus Poll Award

The Region Between (best short fiction, 1970)

Basilisk (best short fiction, 1972)

Again, Dangerous Visions (best anthology, 1972)

The Deathbird (best short fiction, 1974)

Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W (best novelette, 1975)

Croatoan (best short story, 1976)

Jeffty Is Five (best short story, 1978) (best short story of all time, 1999 online poll)

Count the Clock That Tells the Time (best short story, 1979)

Djinn, No Chaser (best novellette, 1983)

Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed (best related non-fiction, 1985)

Medea - Harlan's World|Medea: Harlan's World (best anthology, 1986)

Paladin of the Lost Hour (best novelette, 1986)

With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole (best short story, 1986)

Angry Candy (best collection, 1989)

The Function of Dream Sleep (best novellette, 1989)

Eidolons (best short story, 1989)

Mefisto in Onyx (best novella, 1994)

Slippage (best collection, 1998)

Nebula Award

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman (best short story, 1965)

A Boy and His Dog (best novella, 1969)

Jeffty Is Five (best short story, 1977)

Grand Master Award (at Tempe, Arizona, May 6, 2006)

Writers Guild of America

Demon with a Glass Hand/The Outer Limits (Best Original Teleplay)

The City on the Edge of Forever/Star Trek(Best Original Teleplay)

Paladin of the Lost Hour/The Twilight Zone (Best Anthology Episode/Single Program, 1987)

Phoenix Without Ashes/The Starlost (Best Written Dramatic Episode, 1974)

Writers Guild of Canada

The Human Operators/The Outer Limits (2000)

World Fantasy Award

Angry Candy (Best Collection, 1988)

Lifetime Achievement Award, 1993

Additional reading

California Sorcery, edited by William F. Nolan and William Schafer

Parodies and pastiches of Ellison

Ellison is such a distinctive personality that many other science-fiction authors have inserted thinly-disguised parodies of him into their works, some good-natured, others hostile.

One of the more benevolent is the main character in a mystery novel Murder at the A.B.A. by Isaac Asimov. The novel's main character and narrator is an author named "Darius Just", a thinly-disguised parody of Ellison, who serves as an amateur sleuth to solve the murder of a fellow author at the convention. Asimov intended the name "Darius Just" as a pun on "Dry As Dust". Ellison objected to the depiction: Darius Just is tall, whereas Ellison is taller. Just reappears in the Black Widowers mystery short story "The Woman in the Bar", which is unrelated to the novel, and after Asimov's death in the pastiche "The Last Story" by Charles Ardai.

Robert Silverberg's 1955 novel, Revolt on Alpha C, a retelling of the American Revolution set on a distant planet, features a character named "Harl Ellison," who is the first cadet (of a group that has been sent to restore order) to switch sides and join the revolutionaries.

Ben Bova's comic-SF novel The Starcrossed was inspired by Ellison's and Bova's experience on the Canada-produced miniseries The Starlost. In Bova's novel, a new television show is produced to encourage people to buy newly-invented 3D televisions. The Ellison character is a famous writer named Ron Gabriel. Although Bova is a friend of Ellison's, and his portrayal of Gabriel is admiring and sympathetic, the novel is broad comedy, and should not be read as a true roman a clef. Ellison gave a non-fiction account of his Starlost experience in a lengthy essay titled "Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto".

Mike Friedrich and artist Dick Dillin paid a bizarre homage in the May 1971 issue of the comic book Justice League of America. In a hallucinatory story called "The Most Dangerous Dreams of All," the literary efforts of a flashy, insecure writer named Harlequin Ellis somehow become reality.

In the Ron Goulart novel Galaxy Jane, a birdman character by the name of Harlan Grzyb (author of I Have No Perch But I Must Sing and editor of Dangerous Birdcages) rages about the terrible things others have done to his script for the film Galaxy Jane.

In The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller featured Ellison by name as a television talking head. His only dialog elliptically anticipates a world where "[we'll] be eating our own babies for breakfast." Ellison and Miller are friends, the latter drawing the cover and writing the introduction for the stand-alone publication of Mefisto in Onyx.

In a somewhat less sympathetic vein, Ellison serves as a partial basis for a composite character in Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun. The novel is a satirical look at science fiction and fantasy fandom and conventions.

David Gerrold, in his 1980 Star Trek novel The Galactic Whirlpool, makes mention of "Ellison's Star," a particularly unpredictable and "angry" White Dwarf star.

Yet another Ellison-character appears throughout a 1971 novel by Gerrold and Larry Niven, The Flying Sorcerers. The pantheon of gods in this story are all named after various SF writers. Ellison becomes Elcin, "The small, but mighty god of thunder" who will "Rain lightning down upon the heads" of those who "deny the power of the gods".

In an episode of the animated television show Freakazoid! entitled "And Fanboy is His Name," Freakazoid offers Fanboy "his very own Harlan Ellison" (as a slow, slightly dischordant version of For He's A Jolly Good Fellow plays on the soundtrack) in an attempt to convince Fanboy to stop following him.

In the 1970s, artist and cartoonist Gordon Carleton wrote and drew a scripted slide show called "City on the Edge of Whatever," which was a spoof of "The City on the Edge of Forever". Occasionally performed at Star Trek conventions, it featured an irate writer named "Arlan Hellison" who screamed at his producers, "Art defilers! Script assassins!"

Mystery Science Theater 3000 poked fun at Ellison in the episode "Mitchell", identifying a short irritable–looking man being booked into a police station as the writer and expressing some satisfaction at that notion. (Tom Servo: "They've arrested Harlan Ellison!" Joel Robinson: "Good.")

In "Halvah," Clifford Meth describes an interaction between an Ellison-like character named Cord (for Cordwainer Bird) and a throng of annoying fans. Ellison and Meth are friends, and Ellison provided an afterword to Meth's book god's 15 minutes.

References

Bibliography

Leigh Blackmore, Ellison/Dowling/Dann: A Bibliographic Checklist. (Sydney:R'lyeh Texts, 1996).

Swigart, Leslie Kay. Harlan Ellison: A Bibliographical Checklist 2nd ed. Libra Aurore, 1981.

Note: Overlook Connection Press announced Fingerprints in the Sky:The Authorised Harlan Ellison Bibliography, by Tim Richmond with assistance from Harlan Ellison, as long ago as 2003 and it appears on Amazon.com with finished cover art and a pub date of 2007 but it was not issued that year. Recent blog posts by David Hinchberger, owner of Overlook Connection Press, indicate he anticipates publishing the volume in 2010.

Documentary film

Erik Nelson (writer and director). Dreams with Sharp Teeth (made 2002-2007, released 2008). A documentary film about Ellison's life and work.

External links

Ellison Webderland Official website

Harlan Ellison Islets of Langerhans

The Ellison Bulletin Board Discussion forum

Radio Interview on Comic Zone

Darkhorse comics titles

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Disney (Harlan Ellison)

2000X website

Harlan Ellison @ Deep Shag Records

Review of Dreams With Sharp Teeth documentary

Excerpt from Dreams With Sharp Teeth, Harlan Ellison On Getting Paid

The Onion A.V. Club Interview, Part One

The Onion A.V. Club Interview, Part Two

Essay on Ellison as Jewish Writer at Nextbook.org

Category:1934 births Category:American horror writers Category:American fantasy writers Category:American science fiction writers Category:Cthulhu Mythos writers Category:Edgar Award winners Category:Hugo Award winning authors Category:Jewish American writers Category:Jewish writers Category:American literary critics Category:Living people Category:Nebula Award winning authors Category:Ohio State University alumni Category:Pacifica Radio Category:People from Cleveland, Ohio Category:People from Painesville, Ohio Category:Science fiction editors Category:Science fiction fans Category:SFWA Grand Masters Category:American comics writers Category:Worldcon Guests of Honor Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners Category:Writers from Ohio Category:Clarion Writers' Workshop

Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
Name	Colson Whitehead
Caption	Colson Whitehead at the 2009 Texas Book Festival.
Birthdate	1969
Occupation	Author
Website	http://www.colsonwhitehead.com/

Colson Whitehead is a New York-based novelist. He is best-known as the author of the 2001 novel John Henry Days. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.

Background and education

Whitehead was born in New York City in 1969, and grew up in Manhattan. He attended the prestigious preparatory school Trinity in Manhattan. Whitehead graduated from Harvard College in 1991.

Career

Early years

For two years after leaving college, Whitehead wrote for The Village Voice. While working at the Voice, he began drafting his first novels.

Novels

Whitehead has since produced five widely acclaimed book-length works—four novels and a meditation on life in Manhattan in the style of E.B. White's famous essay Here Is New York. The books are 1999's The Intuitionist, 2001's John Henry Days, 2003's The Colossus of New York, 2006's Apex Hides the Hurt, and 2009's . Esquire Magazine named The Intuitionist the best first novel of the year, and GQ called it one of the "novels of the millennium." Novelist John Updike, reviewing The Intuitionist in The New Yorker, called Whitehead "ambitious," "scintillating," and "strikingly original," adding, "The young African-American writer to watch may well be a thirty-one-year-old Harvard graduate with the vivid name of Colson Whitehead."

Journalism

Whitehead's non-fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Salon and The Village Voice.

Honors

Whitehead is a 2002 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. He received the New York Public Library's 2002 Young Lions Fiction Award as well as a Cullman Fellowship.

Bibliography

The Intuitionist (1999)

John Henry Days (2001)

The Colossus of New York (2003)

Apex Hides the Hurt (2006)

(2009)

References

External links

Personal site

On Point - What's in a Name? (interview, 2006-09-04)

Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:Harvard University alumni Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:American novelists Category:African American novelists Category:African American writers

Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
Name	Allison Janney
Caption	Janney at The Heart Truth Fashion Show, 2008
Birth date	November 19, 1959
Birth place	Dayton, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1989–present
Birth name	Allison Brooks Janney
In a relationship	Andrew Karl (unknown-present)

Allison Brooks Janney (born November 19, 1959) is an American actress, best known for her role as C. J. Cregg on the television series The West Wing.

Personal life

Janney was born in Dayton, Ohio, the daughter of Macy (née Putnam), a former actress and homemaker, and Jervis Spencer Janney, Jr., a real estate developer and jazz musician. She has two older brothers, Jay and Hal. She attended The Miami Valley School in Dayton, where she was named a distinguished alumna in 2004, and the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. She then attended Kenyon College. At Kenyon, Janney studied under another Kenyon alum, Paul Newman. She went on to study drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She attended The Neighborhood Playhouse the same years as actor Dylan McDermott.

Career

Janney's first roles on television were as comedic foils on soap operas: she first played Vi Kaminski for a short time on As the World Turns, following up with a two-year stint as one of the Spaulding maids, Ginger on Guiding Light. In the spring of 1994, she appeared in the season finale of Law & Order, as a reluctant witness against a member of the Russian mob.

Janney has appeared in a number of films with roles of various sizes, including the 1990s films American Beauty, The Object of My Affection, Big Night, The Impostors, Drop Dead Gorgeous, The Ice Storm, Primary Colors, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Private Parts, and the 2000s films Nurse Betty, The Hours, The Chumscrubber, How to Deal, Winter Solstice and a considerable role in the animated movie, Finding Nemo, voicing Peach, the starfish. In 2006, Janney carried notable roles in the movies, Margaret and Over the Hedge, an animated comedy.

In 1999, she was cast in the role of presidential press secretary C.J. Cregg on the television drama The West Wing, for which she eventually won four Emmy Awards. Two of the Emmys were for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Drama Series in 2000 and 2001, and two were for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Drama Series in the years 2002 and 2004. She was also nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in the 2003 and 2006 Primetime Emmys. She is one of six cast members from The West Wing to have won an Emmy for their work - however, Janney is the only one who has won more than once. Janney also won two Screen Actor's Guild awards for Best Actress in a dramatic series, in 2001 and 2002, for her portrayal of C.J Cregg. The cast of "The West Wing" won the Screen Actor's Guild award for Best Ensemble in a dramatic series the same two years. Additional accolades for Janney's work in "The West Wing" include four Golden Globe award nominations, and a nomination in 2002 for American Film Institute's Actor of the Year.

Weekend trips to Washington, D.C. were frequently a part of Janney's schedule, and for the rest of the cast as well, as many outdoor scenes on The West Wing were actually filmed in the nation's capital. Janney also met several times with former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers who served in the Clinton Administration from 1993–1994. Janney met with Myers in New York City to help portray her character more authentically.

The West Wing concluded in January 2006, and the last episode aired in May of that year. Even though the latter seasons were plagued by declining ratings, the overall rating of Janney remained a relatively positive one, touted by Entertainment Weekly as "one to watch", "uncommonly beautiful and infinitely expressive". In January 2006, West Wing's cast was also nominated by the Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast. Janney, Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, and other members of the cast appeared at the SAG Awards to honor their late cast mate and friend, John Spencer.

In 2006, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in the film Our Very Own. Many of Janney's long time friends were involved with Our Very Own including its producer Shannon McMahon Lichte and cast member Allison Mackie. All three were in the same class at the Neighborhood Playhouse. The writer/director Cameron Watson, also a longtime friend, wrote the role of Joan for her.

In 2007, Janney appeared in the Academy-Award-nominated film, Juno playing the part of Bren MacGuff, the title character's stepmother, for which she won Best Supporting Actress in the Austin Film Critics Association Awards 2007. In the same year, Janney appeared in the Golden-Globe-nominated film, Hairspray, as Prudy Pingleton, Penny's (Amanda Bynes) strict and religious mother.

Janney has also appeared in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, also created by Aaron Sorkin. She made a guest appearance as herself in The Disaster Show, as the guest host of the week's episode of Studio 60. Many of the characters made references to her part in The West Wing, even those played by fellow West Wing actors.

Janney has remained active in theater. In 1998, she was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. Her first Broadway role was in Present Laughter opposite Frank Langella. In 2007, she participated in a workshop for a new musical of the film 9 to 5. In late 2008, Janney joined Broadway stars Stephanie J. Block, Megan Hilty and Marc Kudisch in the new musical, 9 to 5. Based on the film of the same name, Janney is starring as Violet Newstead, the super efficient office manager played by Lily Tomlin (a former cast mate from The West Wing) in the original film. Janney has signed on for a one-year contract with the 9 to 5 production. She has since been nominated for a Tony Award for her work in 9 to 5. In May 2009, she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical for the role of Violet Newstead. She also appeared alongside Jack Black and John C. Reilly in Prop 8 (The Musical), a satirical musical protesting the passing of California Proposition 8.

In 2004, Janney began lending her voice to television and radio spots created by Kaiser Permanente in the health maintenance organization's broad "Thrive" media campaign, and in a radio campaign for the American Institute of Architects.

In 2010, she also appeared as Allison Pearson in In Plain Sight.

In May 2010, Janney appeared in the episode of the ABC television series Lost as the adoptive mother of the show's two mythological opponents, Jacob and the Man in Black.

Janney will star in the upcoming ABC network comedy Mr. Sunshine. The series, which was created by Matthew Perry, is scheduled as a midseason replacement for the 2010-11 television season.

In September 2010, it was announced that Janney would be the voice of the Aly San San spokesdroid in the upcoming Disney attraction, .

Filmography

{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 90%;" |- bgcolor="#CCCCCC" align="center" ! colspan="4" style="background: LightSteelBlue;" | Film |- style="background:#ccc; text-align:center;" ! Year ! Film ! Role ! Notes |- | 1989 | Who Shot Patakango? | Miss Penny | |- | rowspan="4"| 1994 | Dead Funny | Jennifer | |- | The Cowboy Way | NYPD computer operator | |- | Wolf | Party guest | |- | Miracle on 34th Street | Christmas shop woman | |- | 1995 | Heading Home | Unknown role | |- | rowspan="6"| 1996 | Flux | Heather | |- | Rescuing Desire | Betsy | |- | Walking and Talking | Gum Puller | |- | Big Night | Ann |Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress |- | Faithful | Saleswoman | |- | The Associate | Sandy | |- | rowspan="4"| 1997 | Anita Liberty | Gynecologist | |- | Private Parts | Dee Dee | |- | The Ice Storm | Dot Halford | |- | Julian Pro | Lilah Leech | |- | rowspan="5"| 1998 | Primary Colors (film) | Miss Walsh | |- | The Object of My Affection | Constance Miller | |- | The Impostors | Maxine | |- | Six Days Seven Nights | Marjorie, Robin's boss | |- | Celebrity | Evelyn Isaacs | |- | rowspan="4"| 1999 | 10 Things I Hate About You | Ms. Perky | |- | Drop Dead Gorgeous | Loretta | |- | American Beauty | Barbara Fitts | |- | The Debtors | | |- | rowspan="3"| 2000 | Leaving Drew | Paula | |- | Auto Motives | Gretchen | |- | Nurse Betty | Lyla Branch | |- | rowspan="2"| 2002 | Rooftop Kisses | Melissa | |- | The Hours | Sally Lester | |- | rowspan="3"| 2003 | Finding Nemo | Peach | Voice |- | How to Deal | Lydia Martin | |- | Chicken Party | Barbara Strasser | |- | rowspan="2"| 2004 | Piccadilly Jim | Eugenia Crocker | |- | Winter Solstice | Molly Ripkin | |- | rowspan="3"| 2005 | Strangers with Candy | Alice | |- | The Chumscrubber | Allie Stiffle | |- | Our Very Own | Joan Whitfield |Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female |- | 2006 | Over the Hedge | Gladys | Voice |- | rowspan="2"| 2007 | Hairspray | Prudy Pingleton | |- | Juno | Brenda 'Bren' MacGuff |Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress |- | rowspan="2"| 2008 | Pretty Ugly People | Suzanna | |- | | Prop 8 leader's wife | |- | rowspan="2"| 2009 | Away We Go | Lily | |- | Life During Wartime | Trish |Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female |- | rowspan="4"| 2011 | Margaret | Wounded woman | Waiting release |- | A Thousand Words | Unknown role | |- | The Oranges | Carol Ostroff | |- | The Help | Charlotte Phelan | |}

Television

{| |- style="background:#ccc; text-align:center;" ! colspan="4" style="background: LightSteelBlue;" | Television |- style="background:#ccc; text-align:center;" ! Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes |- | 1991 | Morton & Hayes | Beatrice Caldicott | Episode: "Society Saps" Episode: "Homes Buddies" |- | 1993 | Blind Spot | Doreen | TV movie |- | 1993–1995 | The Guiding Light | Ginger | Recurring role |- | 1992–1994 | Law & Order | Ann Madsen/Nora | Episode: "Star Truck" Episode: "Old Friends" |- | rowspan="2"| 1995 | The Wright Verdicts | | Episode: "Sins of the Father" |- | New York Undercover | Vivian | Episode: "Digital Underground" |- | rowspan="2"| 1996 | Aliens in the Family | Principal Sherman | Episode: "A Very Brody Tweeznax" |- | Cosby | Podiatric Nurse | Episode: "Happily Ever Hilton" |- | rowspan="2"| 1997 | ...First Do No Harm | Dr. Melanie Abbasac | TV movie |- | | Assistant District Attorney | TV movie |- | 1998 | David and Lisa | Alix | TV movie |- | 1999 | LateLine | Helen Marschant | Episode: "The Minister of Television" |- | 2000 | A Girl Thing | Kathy McCormack | TV movie |- | 2001–2002 | Frasier | Phyllis | Episode: "The Two Hundredth Episode: Three Blind Dates" |- | 2003 | King of the Hill | Laura | Episode: Full Metal Dust Jacket |- | 2005 | Weeds | Ms. Greenstein - Attorney | Episode: "Lude Awakening" |- | 1999–2006 | The West Wing | Claudia Jean "C.J." Cregg | 154 episodes |- | rowspan="2"| 2007 | Two and a Half Men | Beverly | Episode: "My Damn Stalker" |- | Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip | Herself | Episode: "The Disaster Show" |- | 2008–2009 | Phineas and Ferb | Charlene Doofenshmirtz | Episodes: "I Scream, You Scream", "Hail Doofania!", "Thaddeus and Thor" and "Finding Mary McGuffin" |- | rowspan="4"| 2010 | Shameless (U.S. TV series) | Sheila | Episode: "Pilot" |- | Family Guy | Teen People Editor | Episode: "Dial Meg for Murder" |- | Lost | "Mother" | Episode: "Across the Sea" |- | In Plain Sight | Allison Pearson | Episode: "When Mary Met Marshall"Episode: "Coma Chameleon" |- | 2011 | Mr. Sunshine | Crystal Cohen | Main cast |- |}

References

Samuels, Joshua- Allison Janney Interview: http://kenyontalk.blogspot.com/2010/05/from-west-wing-to-great-white-way.html

External links

Photos from Wireimage

Airline Safety Announcement for Independence Air.wax format

Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:People from Dayton, Ohio Category:Actors from Ohio Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Category:American film actors Category:American soap opera actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Kenyon College alumni Category:Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre alumni