name	Pulitzer Prize
description	Excellence in newspaper journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition
presenter	Columbia University
country	United States
year	1917
website	http://www.pulitzer.org/ }}

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American (Hungarian-born) publisher Joseph Pulitzer in 1917 and is administered by Columbia University in New York City. Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of these, each winner receives a certificate and a US$10,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category of the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal, which always goes to a newspaper, although an individual may be named in the citation.

Entry and prize consideration

The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically evaluate all applicable works in the media, but only those that have been entered with a $50 entry fee (one per desired entry category). Entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance on the grounds of having general literary or compositional properties. Works can also only be entered into a maximum of two prize categories, regardless of their properties.

Each year, 103 judges are selected to "serve on 20 separate juries" for the 21 award categories (one jury for both photography awards). Most of the juries consist of five members, except for those of "public service, investigative reporting, beat reporting, feature writing and commentary categories", which have seven members. For each award category, a jury makes three nominations. The board selects the winner by majority vote from the nominations or bypass the nominations and select a different entry with a 75% majority vote. The board can also vote no award. The board gets no compensation for its work. The jurors in letters, music, and drama get a $2000 honorarium for the year, while each chair gets $2500.

The difference between entrants and nominated finalists

Anyone whose work has been submitted is called an "entrant". The jury selects a small group of "nominated finalists" and announces them together with the winner for each category.

History

Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer gave money in his will to Columbia University to launch a journalism school and establish the Prize. $250,000 was allocated to the prize and scholarships. He specified "four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one in education, and four traveling scholarships." After his death, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded June 4, 1917; they are now announced each April.

Recipients

Individuals

Recipients of multiple Pulitzer Prizes include:

Four awards:

* Robert Frost

* Eugene O'Neill (two of the awards were in a four-year period)

*Carol Guzy (for photography)

Three awards:

* Edwin Arlington Robinson

* Archibald MacLeish

* Thomas L. Friedman for International Reporting and Commentary

* Edward Albee

* Thorton Wilder (once in the Novel category and twice in Drama)

* Robert Penn Warren (once for Fiction and twice for Poetry)

* Carl Sandburg (once for Biography and twice for Poetry)

Two awards:

* Robert Caro for Biography

* David McCullough

* Robert Lowell for Poetry

* Mike Luckovich for Editorial Cartooning

* Gene Weingarten for Feature Writing (twice (2008 and 2010) in a three-year period)

* Margaret Leech for History

* August Wilson for Drama

* Barbara W. Tuchman for General Non-Fiction

* Norman Mailer for Fiction and Non-Fiction

* William Faulkner

* John Updike

* Gian Carlo Menotti for music composition

* Samuel Barber for music composition

* Elliot Carter for music composition

* Booth Tarkington for Novel (twice in a four-year period)

* Anthony Shadid for his coverage of the Iraq War

Newspapers

The prize for Public Service is awarded to newspapers. Awards for journalism categories such as General News Reporting may be awarded to individuals or newspapers or newspaper staffs.

Categories

Awards are made in categories relating to newspaper journalism, arts, and letters and fiction. Only published reports and photographs by United States-based newspapers or daily news organizations are eligible for the journalism prize. Beginning in 2007, "an assortment of online elements will be permitted in all journalism categories except for the competition's two photography categories, which will continue to restrict entries to still images." In December 2008 it was announced that for the first time content published in online-only news sources would be considered.

The current Pulitzer Prize category definitions in the 2008 competition, in the order they are awarded, are:

Public Service – for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper through the use of its journalistic resources, which may include editorials, cartoons, and photographs, as well as reporting. Often thought of as the grand prize, the Public Service award is given to the newspaper, not to individuals, though individuals are often mentioned for their contributions.

Breaking News Reporting – for a distinguished example of local reporting of breaking news.

Investigative Reporting – for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single newspaper article or series.

Explanatory Reporting – for a distinguished example of explanatory newspaper reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing, and clear presentation.

Local Reporting – for a distinguished example of local newspaper reporting that illuminates significant issues or concerns.

National Reporting – for a distinguished example of newspaper reporting on national affairs.

International Reporting – for a distinguished example of newspaper reporting on international affairs, including United Nations correspondence.

Feature Writing – for a distinguished example of newspaper feature writing giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality.

Commentary – for distinguished commentary.

Criticism – for distinguished criticism.

Editorial Writing – for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clarity of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer perceives to be the right direction.

Editorial Cartooning – for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing, and pictorial effect.

Breaking News Photography, previously called Spot News Photography – for a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence, or an album.

Feature Photography – for a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence, or an album.

There are six categories in letters and drama:

Fiction – for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.

Drama – for a distinguished play by an American playwright, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life.

History – for a distinguished book on the history of the United States.

Biography or Autobiography – for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.

Poetry – for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American poet.

General Non-Fiction – for a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category.

There is one prize given for music:

Pulitzer Prize for Music – for a distinguished musical contribution by an American that had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year.

There have also been a number of Special Citations and Awards.

In addition to the prizes, Pulitzer travelling fellowships are awarded to four outstanding students of the Graduate School of Journalism as selected by the faculty.

Board

The 20-member board consists mostly of major newspaper editors and executives, along with six academics including the president of Columbia University and the dean and administrator of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The administrator and the dean cannot vote. The board elects its own members for a three-year term (excluding the dean and the administrator). Members of the board and the juries are selected with close attention "given to professional excellence and affiliation, as well as diversity in terms of gender, ethnic background, geographical distribution and size of newspaper." Each year, the chair rotates to the most senior member. The board makes all prize decisions.

The 2011–2012 board members were:

Danielle Allen, UPS Foundation Professor, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ

Jim Amoss, Editor, ''The Times-Picayune'', New Orleans, LA (Co-chair)

Randell Beck, President and Publisher, Argus Leader Media, Sioux Falls, SD

Robert Blau, Managing Editor for projects and investigations, Bloomberg News, New York, NY

Lee Bollinger, President, Columbia University, New York, NY

Kathleen Carroll, Executive Editor and Senior Vice President, Associated Press (Co-chair)

Joyce Dehli, Vice President for News, Lee Enterprises

Junot Díaz, Author and Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Thomas Friedman, Columnist, ''The New York Times'', New York, NY

Paul Gigot, Editorial Page Editor, ''The Wall Street Journal'', New York, NY

Sig Gissler, Administrator, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York, NY

Steven Hahn, Roy F. and Jeanette P. Nichols Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Nicholas Lemann, Dean, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York, NY

Ann Marie Lipinski, Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (Co-chair)

Gregory Moore, Editor, ''The Denver Post'', Denver, CO

Eugene Robinson, Columnist and Associate Editor, ''The Washington Post''

Margaret Sullivan, Editor, ''The Buffalo News'', Buffalo, NY

Paul Tash, Chairman and CEO, ''Tampa Bay Times'', St. Petersburg, FL

Jim VandeHei, Executive Editor and Co-founder, ''Politico''

Keven Ann Willey, Vice President/Editorial Page Editor, ''The Dallas Morning News''

Discontinued awards

Over the years, awards have been discontinued either because the field of the award has been expanded to encompass other areas, the award been renamed because the common terminology changed, or the award has become obsolete, such as the prizes for telegraphic reporting, which was based on the old technology of the telegram.

An example of a writing field that has been expanded was the former Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which has been changed to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which also includes short stories, novellas, novelettes, and fictional poetry, as well as novels.

To find, for example, all the winners for investigative reporting, you have to also look back at the prize for local investigative specialized reporting, which previously was the prize for local reporting, no edition time.

Discontinued or merged categories include:

Pulitzer Prize for Reporting, 1917–1947.

Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence, 1929–1947.

Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, became the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting, 1985–1990, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Local General or Spot News Reporting, 1964–1984, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting, 1964–1984, became the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, Edition Time, 1953–1963, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, No Edition Time, 1953–1963, became the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Photography, was divided in 1968 into Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and a spot news category, which became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.

Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting, 1991–1997, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting - International, became the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting - National, became the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Specialized Reporting 1985–1990, became the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting, 1991–2006; replaced by the reinstituted Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting

Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, became the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Brief chronology of renamings, splittings, and introductions

1917: + Biography or Autobiography; + History; + Editorial Writing; + Reporting

1918: + Novel; + Drama; + Public Service

1922: + Poetry; + Editorial Cartooning

1929: + Correspondence

1942: + Photography; + Telegraphic Reporting—National; + Telegraphic Reporting—International

1943: + Music

1948: − Correspondence; − Novel + Fiction; − Reporting + Local reporting; − Telegraphic Reporting—National + National Reporting; − Telegraphic Reporting—International + International Reporting

1953: − Local reporting + Local Reporting, Edition Time; + Local Reporting, No Edition Time

1962: + General Non-Fiction

1964: − Local Reporting, Edition Time + Local General or Spot News Reporting; − Local Reporting, No Edition Time + Local Investigative Specialized Reporting

1968: − Photography; + Feature Photography; + Spot News Photography

1970: + Commentary; + Criticism

1979: + Feature Writing

1985: − Local General or Spot News Reporting + General News Reporting; − Local Investigative Specialized Reporting; + Investigative Reporting; + Specialized Reporting; + Explanatory Journalism

1991: − General News Reporting + Spot News Reporting; − Specialized Reporting + Beat Reporting

1998: − Spot News Reporting + Breaking News Reporting; − Explanatory Journalism + Explanatory Reporting

2000: − Spot News Photography + Breaking News Photography

2007: − Beat Reporting + Local reporting

Controversies

Calls for revocation of journalist Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize

Call for revocation of journalist William L. Laurence's 1946 Pulitzer Prize

1962 Biography Prize: ''Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst'' by W. A. Swanberg was recommended by the Prize board but overturned by the trustees of Columbia University because its subject, Hearst, was not an "eminent example of the biographer's art as specified in the prize definition". 1974 Fiction Prize: ''Gravity's Rainbow'' by Thomas Pynchon was recommended by the three-member fiction panel but the eleven other members of the Prize board overturned that decision and no award was given.

Forfeiture of Janet Cooke's 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for fabricating the story.

Criticism

Some critics of the Pulitzer Prize have accused the organization of favoring those who support liberal causes or oppose conservative causes. Syndicated columnist L. Brent Bozell said that the Pulitzer Prize has a "liberal legacy", particularly in its prize for commentary. He pointed to a 31-year period in which only five conservatives won prizes for commentary. The claim is also supported by a statement from the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary, Kathleen Parker: "It's only because I'm a conservative basher that I'm now recognized."

See also

List of Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The New York Times

National Magazine Awards

References

External links

Official website

Category:American journalism awards Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Category:Awards by Columbia University

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name	Jennifer Egan
birth date	September 06, 1962
birth place	Chicago, Illinois
occupation	Novelist
citizenship	United States
genre	Fiction, Novel, Short story
notableworks	''Look at Me'' (novel, 2001), ''A Visit From the Goon Squad'' (novel, 2010)
awards	National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Critics Circle Award
website	http://www.jenniferegan.com/ }}

Jennifer Egan (born September 6, 1962) is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Egan's novel ''A Visit From the Goon Squad'' won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Background and career

She was raised in San Francisco. After she graduated from Lowell High School, Egan majored in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by two years at St John's College, Cambridge supported by a Thouron Award. She has published short fiction in ''The New Yorker'', ''Harper's'', ''Zoetrope: All-Story'', and ''Ploughshares'', among others, and her journalism appears frequently in ''The New York Times Magazine''. She has published one short story collection and four novels, among which ''Look at Me'' was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001.

Egan has been hesitant to classify ''A Visit from the Goon Squad'' as either a novel or a short story collection. Speaking about ''A Visit from the Goon Squad'''s genre, Egan said, "I wanted to avoid centrality. I wanted polyphony. I wanted a lateral feeling, not a forward feeling. My ground rules were: every piece has to be very different, from a different point of view. I actually tried to break that rule later; if you make a rule then you also should break it!" The book features genre-bending content such as a chapter entirely formatted as a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. When discussing her inspiration and approach to the work, she said, "I don’t experience time as linear. I experience it in layers that seem to coexist…One thing that facilitates that kind of time travel is music, which is why I think music ended up being such an important part of the book. Also, I was reading Proust. He tries, very successfully in some ways, to capture the sense of time passing, the quality of consciousness, and the ways to get around linearity, which is the weird scourge of writing prose."

Awards

thumb|Egan at the 2010 Brooklyn Book FestivalEgan received a Thouron Award in 1986. She was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library in 2004-05. In 2011 she was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Egan won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction) and a Pulitzer Prize for ''A Visit From the Goon Squad''.

Works

''Emerald City'' (short story collection) (1993, UK; released in US in 1996)

''The Invisible Circus'' (novel) (1995)

''Look at Me'' (novel) (2001)

''The Keep'' (novel) (2006)

''A Visit From the Goon Squad'' (novel) (2010)

Reviews

Reviewing ''The Keep'', ''The New York Times'': Jennifer Egan is a refreshingly unclassifiable novelist; she deploys most of the arsenal developed by metafiction writers of the 1960s and refined by more recent authors like William T. Vollmann and David Foster Wallace — but she can’t exactly be counted as one of them. The opening of her novel, ''The Keep'', lays out a whole Escherian architecture, replete with metafictional trapdoors, pitfalls, infinitely receding reflections and trompe l’œil effects, but what’s more immediately striking about this book is its unusually vivid and convincing realism.

See also

Mac Aodhagáin

References

External links

Jennifer Egan's website

Reviews & Scores for ''The Keep'' at Metacritic.com

Book Review at Boldtype.com

"The Ghost in the Renovation" at This Old House website

Reading report from Happy Endings with Peter Behrens and David Rakoff, published at bookishlove.net (Nov 2006)

2010 ''BOMB Magazine'' interview of Jennifer Egan by Heidi Julavitz

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:American novelists Category:American short story writers Category:People from San Francisco, California Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni Category:Writers from California Category:Writers from Chicago, Illinois Category:Writers from New York

ar:جنيفر ايجان de:Jennifer Egan es:Jennifer Egan fr:Jennifer Egan it:Jennifer Egan nl:Jennifer Egan pl:Jennifer Egan fi:Jennifer Egan sv:Jennifer Egan

name	Kay Ryan
birth date	September 21, 1945
birth place	San Jose, California, USA
occupation	Poet, Educator
nationality	American
period	1970s-present
genre	Poetry
notableworks	The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010)
partner	Carol Adair (1978-2009†)
influences	Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost
awards	Guggenheim Fellowship (2004)Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (2004)United States Poet Laureate (2008-2010)Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (2011)MacArthur Fellowship (2011)
portaldisp	}}

Kay Ryan (born September 21, 1945) is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. Ryan was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate, from 2008 to 2010. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.

Biography

Ryan was born in San Jose, California, and was raised in several areas of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. After attending Antelope Valley College, she received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County, California, and has taught English part-time at the College of Marin in Kentfield. Carol Adair, who was also an instructor at the College of Marin, was Ryan's partner from 1978 until Adair's death in 2009.

Her first collection, ''Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends'', was privately published in 1983 with the help of friends. While she found a commercial publisher for her second collection, ''Strangely Marked Metal'' (1985), her work went nearly unrecognized until the mid 1990s, when some of her poems were anthologized and the first reviews in national journals were published. She became widely recognized following her receipt of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2004, and published her sixth collection of poetry, ''The Niagara River'', in 2005.

In July 2008, the U.S. Library of Congress announced that Ryan would be the sixteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for a one-year term commencing in Autumn 2008. She succeeded Charles Simic. In April 2009, the Library announced that Ryan would serve a second one-year term extending through May 2010. She was succeeded by W.S. Merwin in June 2010.

She lives in Fairfax, in Marin County, CA.

Poetry

The Poetry Foundation's website has characterized Ryan's poems as follows: "Like Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore before her, Ryan delights in quirks of logic and language and teases poetry out of the most unlikely places. She regards the 'rehabilitation of clichés,' for instance, as part of the poet’s mission. Characterized by subtle, surprising rhymes and nimble rhythms, her compact poems are charged with sly wit and off-beat wisdom." J. D. McClatchy included Ryan in his 2003 anthology of contemporary American poetry. He wrote in his introduction, "Her poems are compact, exhilarating, strange affairs, like Satie miniatures or Cornell boxes. ... There are poets who start with lived life, still damp with sorrow or uncertainty, and lead it towards ideas about life. And there are poets who begin with ideas and draw life in towards their speculations. Marianne Moore and May Swenson were this latter sort of artist; so is Kay Ryan."

Ryan's poems are often quite short. In one of the first essays on Ryan, Dana Gioia wrote about this aspect of her poetry. "Ryan reminds us of the suggestive power of poetry–how it elicits and rewards the reader’s intellect, imagination, and emotions. I like to think that Ryan’s magnificently compressed poetry – along with the emergence of other new masters of the short poem like Timothy Murphy and H.L. Hix and the veteran ''maestri'' like Ted Kooser and Dick Davis – signals a return to concision and intensity."

Many reviewers have noted an affinity between Ryan's poetry and Marianne Moore's.

In addition to the oft-remarked affinity with Moore, affinities with poets May Swenson, Stevie Smith, Emily Dickinson, Wendy Cope, and Amy Clampitt have been noted by some critics. Thus Katha Pollitt wrote that Ryan's fourth collection, ''Elephant Rocks'' (1997), is "Stevie Smith rewritten by William Blake" but that ''Say Uncle'' (2000) "is like a poetical offspring of George Herbert and the British comic poet Wendy Cope." Another reviewer of ''Say Uncle'' (2000) wrote of Ryan, "Her casual manner and nods to the wisdom tradition might endear her to fans of A. R. Ammons or link her distantly to Emily Dickinson. But her tight structures, odd rhymes and ethical judgments place her more firmly in the tradition of Marianne Moore and, latterly, Amy Clampitt."

Ryan's wit, quirkiness, and slyness are often noted by reviewers of her poetry, but Jack Foley emphasizes her essential seriousness. In his review of ''Say Uncle'' he writes, "There is, in short, far more darkness than 'light' in this brilliant, limited volume. Kay Ryan is a serious poet writing serious poems, and she resides on a serious planet (a word she rhymes with 'had it'). Ryan can certainly be funny, but it is rarely without a sting." Some of these disjoint qualities in her work are illustrated by her poem "Outsider Art", which Harold Bloom selected for the anthology ''The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997''.

Ryan is also known for her extensive use of internal rhyme. She refers to her specific methods of using internal rhyme as "recombinant rhyme." She claims that she had a hard time "tak[ing] end-rhyme seriously," and uses recombinant rhyme to bring structure and form to her work. As for other types of form, Ryan claims that she cannot use them, stating that it is "like wearing the wrong clothes."

Honors and awards

Ryan's awards include a 1995 award from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the 2000 Union League Poetry Prize, the 2001 Maurice English Poetry Award, a fellowship in 2001 from the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2004 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Her poems have been included in three Pushcart Prize anthologies, and have been selected four times for ''The Best American Poetry''; "Outsider Art" was selected by Harold Bloom for ''The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997''. Since 2006, Ryan has served as one of fourteen Chancellors of The Academy of American Poets. On January 22, 2011, Ryan was listed as a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award; on April 18, 2011, Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for her collection ''The Best of It: New and Selected Poems''.

On September 20th, 2011, Ryan was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation MacArthur Fellows Program 'genius grant.'

Poetry collections

1983: ''Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends'', 64 pages, Fairfax, California: Taylor Street Press, ISBN 0911407006

1985: ''Strangely Marked Metal'', 50 pages, Providence, Rhode Island: Copper Beech Press, ISBN 0914278460

1994: ''Flamingo Watching'', 63 pages, Providence, Rhode Island: Copper Beech Press, ISBN 0914278649

1996: ''Elephant Rocks'', 84 pages, New York: Grove Press, ISBN 0802115861

2000: ''Say Uncle'', New York: Grove Press, 80 pages, ISBN 0802137172

2005: ''The Niagara River'', 72 pages, New York: Grove Press, ISBN 0802142222

2008: ''Jam Jar Lifeboat & Other Novelties Exposed'', illustrated by Carl Dern. 40 pages, Red Berry Editions, ISBN 9780981578118

2010: ''The Best of It: New and Selected Poems'', Grove Press, ISBN 978-0802119148

References

External links

Profile and poems of Kay Ryan at the Poetry Foundation.

Audio: Kay Ryan reading at the 2010 Key West Literary Seminar (29:52)

Review of The Best of It by Dwight Garner in The New York Times.

Dana Gioia "Discovering Kay Ryan".">Essay by Dana Gioia "Discovering Kay Ryan". First published in ''The Dark Horse'' journal (No. 7, Winter 1998-99).

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:Antelope Valley College alumni Category:American educators Category:American poets Category:20th-century poets Category:21st-century poets Category:American Poets Laureate Category:American women writers Category:Women poets Category:Lesbian writers Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:People from San Jose, California Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners Category:MacArthur Fellows

de:Kay Ryan es:Kay Ryan ru:Райан, Кей

name	David McCullough
Birth name	David Gaub McCullough
birth date	July 07, 1933
birth place	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
occupation	Historian, author
nationality	American
period	1968 – current
genre	History
notableworks	''The Path Between the Seas'' (1977), ''Truman'' (1992), ''John Adams'' (2001)
spouse	Rosalee Ingram Barnes McCullough (1954 – present)
children	Five
home	Camden, Maine
influences	Thornton Wilder
awards
signature	}}

David Gaub McCullough (; born July 7, 1933) is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, McCullough earned a degree in English literature from Yale University. His first book was ''The Johnstown Flood'' (1968); and he has since written eight more on such topics as Harry S Truman, John Adams, and the Brooklyn Bridge. McCullough has also narrated multiple documentaries, as well as the 2003 film ''Seabiscuit''; and he hosted ''American Experience'' for twelve years. McCullough's two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, ''Truman'' and ''John Adams'', have been adapted by HBO into a TV film and a mini-series, respectively. McCullough's most recent work, ''The Greater Journey'', about Americans in Paris from the 1830s to the 1900s, was released on May 24, 2011.

Life and career

Youth and education

McCullough was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth (née Rankin) and Christian Hax McCullough. He is of Scotch-Irish descent. He was educated at Linden Avenue Grade School and Shady Side Academy, in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of four sons, McCullough had a "marvelous" childhood with a wide range of interests, including sports and drawing cartoons. McCullough's parents and his grandmother, who read to him often, introduced him to books at an early age. His parents talked openly about history, a topic he feels should be discussed more often. McCullough "loved school, every day"; he contemplated many career choices ranging from architect, actor, painter, writer, lawyer, and even attending medical school.

In 1951, McCullough began attending Yale University. He believed that it was a "privilege" to study English at Yale because of faculty members such as John O'Hara, John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, and Brendan Gill. McCullough occasionally ate lunch with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder, says McCullough, taught him that a competent writer maintains "an air of freedom" in the storyline, so that a reader won't anticipate the outcome, even if the book happens to be non-fiction.

While at Yale, he became a member of Skull and Bones. He served apprenticeships at ''Time'', ''Life'', the United States Information Agency, and ''American Heritage''., where he found enjoyment in research. "Once I discovered the endless fascination of doing the research and of doing the writing, I knew I had found what I wanted to do in my life." While attending Yale, McCullough studied Arts and achieved his Bachelor's degree in English, with the intention of becoming a fiction writer or playwright. He graduated with honors in English literature (1955).

Writing career

Early career

After graduation, McCullough moved to New York City, where the recently formed ''Sports Illustrated'' hired him as a trainee. He was later hired by the United States Information Agency, in Washington, D.C., as an editor and writer. After working for twelve years, including a position at ''American Heritage'', with a consistent concentration on editing and writing, McCullough "felt that [he] had reached the point where [he] could attempt something on [his] own." McCullough "had no anticipation that [he] was going to write history, but [he] stumbled upon a story that [he] thought was powerful, exciting, and very worth telling." While working at ''American Heritage'', McCullough wrote in his spare time for three years. ''The Johnstown Flood'', a chronicle of one of the worst flood disasters in United States history, was released in 1968 to high praise by critics. John Leonard, of ''The New York Times'', said of McCullough, "We have no better social historian." Despite rough financial times, McCullough, with encouragement from his wife, Rosalee, made the decision to become a full-time writer. }}

Gaining recognition

After the success of ''The Johnstown Flood'', two new publishers offered him contracts, one to write about the Great Chicago Fire and another about the San Francisco earthquake. However, Simon & Schuster, publisher of ''The Johnstown Flood'', also offered McCullough a contract to write a second book. Trying not to become "Bad News McCullough", he decided to write about a subject showing "people were not always foolish and inept or irresponsible." Remembering the words of his Yale teacher, "[Thornton] Wilder said he got the idea for a book or a play when he wanted to learn about something. Then, he'd check to see if anybody had already done it, and if they hadn't, he'd do it." McCullough decided to write a history of the Brooklyn Bridge, which he had walked across many times.

"To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is."

– David McCullough

He also proposed, from a suggestion by his editor, a work about the Panama Canal; both were accepted by the publisher. Published in 1972, critics hailed ''The Great Bridge'' as "the definitive book on the event." Five years later, ''The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal'' was released, gaining McCullough widespread attention for the first time. The book won the National Book Award in History, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Cornelius Ryan Award. Later in 1977, McCullough travelled to the White House to advise Jimmy Carter and the United States Senate on the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which would give Panama control of the Canal. Carter later said that the treaties, which were agreed upon to hand over ownership of the Canal to Panama, would not have passed, had it not been for the book.

"The story of people"

McCullough's fourth work was his first biography, reinforcing his belief that "history is the story of people". Released in 1981, ''Mornings on Horseback'' tells the story of seventeen years in the life of the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. The work, ranging from 1869, when Roosevelt was ten years old, to 1886, tells of a "life intensely lived." The book won McCullough's second National Book Award and his first Los Angeles Times Prize for Biography and New York Public Library Literary Lion Award. Next, he released ''Brave Companions'', a collection of essays that "unfold seamlessly". Written over twenty years, the book includes works about Louis Agassiz, Alexander von Humboldt, John and Washington Roebling, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Conrad Aiken, and Frederic Remington. McCullough's next book and second biography continued the trend of writing about American presidents—''Truman'' (1993) about the 33rd president. The book won McCullough his first Pulitzer Prize, in the category of "Best Biography or Autobiography." Two years later, the book was adapted as ''Truman'', a television movie by HBO, starring Gary Sinise as Truman.

"I think it's important to remember that these men are not perfect. If they were marble gods, what they did wouldn't be so admirable. The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them."

– David McCullough

Working for the next seven years, McCullough released ''John Adams'' (2001), his third biography about a United States president. One of the fastest-selling non-fiction books in history, the book won McCullough's second Pultizer Prize for "Best Biography or Autobiography." It began as a book about founding fathers and back-to-back presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams; but Jefferson was eventually dropped, and the book focused solely on Adams. HBO returned to McCullough's works to adapt ''John Adams''. Premiering in 2008, the seven-part miniseries starred Academy Award-nominated actor Paul Giamatti in the title role. The DVD version of the miniseries includes the biopic, "David McCullough: Painting with Words."

McCullough's ''1776'', tells the story of the founding year of the United States, focusing on George Washington, the amateur army, and other struggles for independence. Because of McCullough's popularity, its initial printing was 1.25 million copies, many more than the average history book. Upon its release, the book was a number one best-seller in the United States. A miniseries adaptation of ''1776'' was rumored.

McCullough considered writing a sequel to ''1776''. However, he signed a contract with Simon & Schuster to do a work about Americans in Paris between 1830 and 1900, ''The Greater Journey'', which was released in May 2011. The book covers 19th-century Americans like Mark Twain and Samuel Morse, who migrated to Paris and went on to achieve importance in culture or innovation. Other subjects include Elihu Washburne, the American ambassador to France during the Franco-Prussian War, and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the United States.

Personal life

David McCullough currently lives in Boston and is married to Rosalee Barnes McCullough, whom he met at age 17, in Pittsburgh. The couple have five children and eighteen grandchildren. He enjoys sports, history and art, including watercolor and portrait painting.

Awards and accolades

McCullough has received numerous awards throughout his career, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December 2006, the highest civilian award that a United States citizen can receive. In 1995 the National Book Foundation conferred its lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. McCullough has been awarded over 40 honorary degrees, including one from the Eastern Nazarene College in John Adams' hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts. For his writing, McCullough has received two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, two Francis Parkman Prizes, the ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Award, and New York Public Library’s Literary Lion Award, among others. McCullough was chosen to deliver the first annual John Hersey Lecture at Yale University on March 22, 1993. (Author, Yale alumnus, and Yale writing professor John Hersey died later that year.) He is a member of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and the Academy of Achievement. In 2003, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected McCullough for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. McCullough's lecture was entitled "The Course of Human Events";

In 1995, McCullough received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

McCullough has been called a "master of the art of narrative history." ''New York Times'' critic John Leonard wrote that McCullough was "incapable of writing a page of bad prose." His works have been published in ten languages, over nine million copies have been printed, and all of his books are still in print.

Works

Books

Title	Year	Awards
''The Johnstown Flood''
''The Great Bridge''
''The Path Between the Seas''		National Book Award – 1978 Francis Parkman Prize – 1978Samuel Eliot Morison Award – 1978Cornelius Ryan Award – 1978
''Mornings on Horseback''		National Book Award – 1982
''Brave Companions''
		Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography – 1993 The Colonial Dames of America Annual Book Award – 1993
		Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography – 2002
		American Compass Best Book – 2005
''In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story''

Narrations

McCullough has narrated many television shows and documentaries throughout his career. In addition to narrating the 2003 film ''Seabiscuit'', McCullough hosted PBS's ''American Experience'' from 1988–1999. McCullough has also narrated numerous documentaries directed by Ken Burns, including Emmy Award winning ''The Civil War'', Academy Award nominated ''Brooklyn Bridge'', ''The Statue of Liberty'', and ''The Congress''.

List of films presented or narrated

''Brooklyn Bridge'' (1981)

''Smithsonian World'' (5 episodes, 1984–1988)

''The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God'' (1984)

''The Statue of Liberty'' (1985)

''Huey Long'' (1985)

''A Man, A Plan, A Canal : Panama (NOVA)'' (1987)

''The Congress'' (1988)

''The Civil War'' (9 episodes, 1990)

''American Experience'' (23 episodes, 1991–2006)

''Coney Island'' (1991)

''The Donner Party'' (1992)

''D-Day Remembered'' (1994)

''Napoleon-PBS Empires Special'' (2000)

''Seabiscuit'' (2003)

Notes

References

External links

David McCullough at Simon and Schuster

*''Booknotes'' interview with McCullough on ''Truman'', July 19, 1992.

*''In Depth'' interview with McCullough, December 2, 2001

Speech Transcript: "Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are" at Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on the topic, “American History and America’s Future.”

Category:American biographers Category:American historians Category:American political writers Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Category:National Book Award winners Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners Category:Quill Award winners Category:Writers from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Yale University alumni Category:National Humanities Medal recipients Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent

es:David McCullough nl:David McCullough

name	Neil Gaiman
birth date	November 10, 1960
birth place	Portchester, Hampshire, England
occupation	Novelist, graphic novelist and screenwriter
nationality	British
spouse	Amanda Palmer (2011–present) Mary McGrath (1985–2007)
period	1980s–present
genre	Fantasy, Horror, Science fiction, Dark fantasy
influences	Douglas Adams, Alan Moore, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, Jorge Luis Borges, Ray Bradbury, various fairy tales, G. K. Chesterton, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert A. Heinlein, Shirley Jackson, R. A. Lafferty, C. S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, H. P. Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock, Clive Barker, Dave Sim, Thorne Smith, J. R. R. Tolkien, Peter S. Beagle, Gene Wolfe, Lewis Carroll, Gilbert and Sullivan, Tori Amos
influenced	Susanna Clarke, Ekaterina Sedia, Guillermo del Toro, Russell Payne, Dave McKean, Tori Amos
notableworks	''The Sandman'', ''Neverwhere'', ''American Gods'', ''Stardust'', ''Coraline'', ''The Graveyard Book'', ''Good Omens''
website	http://neilgaiman.com/ }}

Neil Richard Gaiman (; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series ''The Sandman'' and novels ''Stardust'', ''American Gods'', ''Coraline'', and ''The Graveyard Book''. Gaiman's writing has won numerous awards, including Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker, as well as the 2009 Newbery Medal and 2010 Carnegie Medal in Literature. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work.

Early life

Gaiman's family is of Polish and other Eastern European Jewish origins; his great-grandfather emigrated from Antwerp before 1914 and his grandfather eventually settled in the Hampshire city of Portsmouth and established a chain of grocery stores. His father, David Bernard Gaiman, worked in the same chain of stores; his mother, Sheila Gaiman (''née'' Goldman), was a pharmacist. He has two younger sisters, Claire and Lizzy. After living for a period in the nearby town of Portchester, Hampshire, where Neil was born in 1960, the Gaimans moved in 1965 to the West Sussex town of East Grinstead where his parents studied Dianetics at the Scientology centre in the town. They remained closely involved with Judaism; Gaiman's sister later said, "It would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I’d say, 'I’m a Jewish Scientologist. Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist.

Gaiman was able to read at the age of four. He said, "I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them--which would mean that I'd know what was coming up, because I'd read it." One work that made a particular impression on him was J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' from his school library, although it only had the first two books in the trilogy. He consistently took them out and read them. He would later win the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third book in the trilogy.

For his seventh birthday, Gaiman received C. S. Lewis's ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' series. He later recalled that "I admired his use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just talk to you...I'd think, 'Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses.' I liked the power of putting things in brackets." Another childhood favorite was Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'', which he called "a favourite forever. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart." He also enjoyed Batman comics as a child.

Gaiman was educated at several Church of England schools, including Fonthill School in East Grinstead, Ardingly College (1970–74), and Whitgift School in Croydon (1974–77). His father's position as a public relations official of the Church of Scientology was the cause of the seven-year-old Gaiman being blocked from entering a boys' school, forcing him to remain at the school that he had previously been attending. He lived in East Grinstead for many years, from 1965–1980 and again from 1984–1987. He met his first wife, Mary McGrath, while she was studying Scientology and living in a house in East Grinstead that was owned by his father. The couple were married in 1985 after having their first child, Michael.

Journalism, early writings, and literary influences

As a child and a teenager, Gaiman read the works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, James Branch Cabell, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Rudyard Kipling. Lord Dunsany and G. K. Chesterton. He later became a fan of science fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as Alan Moore, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Robert A. Heinlein, H. P. Lovecraft, Thorne Smith, and Gene Wolfe.

In the early 1980s, Gaiman pursued journalism, conducting interviews and writing book reviews, as a means to learn about the world and to make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published. He wrote and reviewed extensively for the British Fantasy Society. His first professional short story publication was "Featherquest", a fantasy story, in ''Imagine Magazine'' in May 1984, when he was 24.

When waiting for a train at Victoria Station in 1984, Gaiman noticed a copy of ''Swamp Thing'' written by Alan Moore, and carefully read it. Moore's fresh and vigorous approach to comics had such an impact on Gaiman that he would later write; "that was the final straw, what was left of my resistance crumbled. I proceeded to make regular and frequent visits to London's Forbidden Planet shop to buy comics".

In 1984, he wrote his first book, a biography of the band Duran Duran, as well as ''Ghastly Beyond Belief'', a book of quotations, with Kim Newman. Even though Gaiman thought he did a terrible job, the book's first edition sold out very quickly. When he went to relinquish his rights to the book, he discovered the publisher had gone bankrupt. After this, he was offered a job by Penthouse. He refused the offer.

He also wrote interviews and articles for many British magazines, including ''Knave''. As he was writing for different magazines, some of them competing, and "wrote too many articles", he sometimes went by a number of pseudonyms: Gerry Musgrave, Richard Grey, "along with a couple of house names". Gaiman ended his journalism career in 1987 because British newspapers can "make up anything they want and publish it as fact."

In the late 1980s, he wrote ''Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion'' in what he calls a "classic English humour" style. Following on from that he wrote the opening of what would become his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the comic novel ''Good Omens'', about the impending apocalypse.

Comics and graphic novels

After forming a friendship with comic book writer Alan Moore, Gaiman started writing comic books, picking up ''Marvelman'' after Moore finished his run on the series. Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham collaborated on several issues of the series before its publisher, Eclipse Comics, collapsed, leaving the series unfinished. His first published comic strips were four short ''Future Shocks'' for ''2000 AD'' in 1986–7. He wrote three graphic novels with his favorite collaborator and long-time friend Dave McKean: ''Violent Cases'', ''Signal to Noise'', and ''The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch''. Impressed with his work, DC Comics hired him, and he wrote the limited series ''Black Orchid''. Karen Berger, who later became head of DC Comics's Vertigo, read ''Black Orchid'' and offered Gaiman a job: to re-write an old character, The Sandman, but to put his own spin on him.

''The Sandman'' tells the tale of the ageless, anthropomorphic personification of Dream that is known by many names, including Morpheus. The series began in December 1988 and concluded in March 1996: the 75 issues of the regular series, along with an illustrated prose text and a special containing seven short stories, have been collected into 12 volumes that remain in print (14 if the ''Death: The High Cost of Living'' spin-off is taken into account). Artists include Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones III, lettering by Todd Klein, colors by Daniel Vozzo, and covers by Dave McKean.

In 1989, Gaiman published ''The Books of Magic'' (collected in 1991), a four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he is destined to be the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and sired an ongoing series written by John Ney Rieber.

In the mid-90s, he also created a number of new characters and a setting that was to be featured in a title published by Tekno Comix. The concepts were then altered and split between three titles set in the same continuity: ''Lady Justice'', ''Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man'', and ''Teknophage''. They were later featured in ''Phage: Shadow Death'' and ''Wheel of Worlds''. Although Gaiman's name appeared prominently on all titles, he was not involved in writing of any of the above-mentioned books (though he helped plot the zero issue of ''Wheel of Worlds'').

Gaiman wrote a semi-autobiographical story about a boy's fascination with Michael Moorcock's anti-hero Elric of Melniboné for Ed Kramer's anthology ''Tales of the White Wolf.'' In 1996, Gaiman and Ed Kramer co-edited ''The Sandman: Book of Dreams''. Nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the original fiction anthology featured stories and contributions by Tori Amos, Clive Barker, Gene Wolfe, Tad Williams, and others.

Asked why he likes comics more than other forms of storytelling Gaiman said “One of the joys of comics has always been the knowledge that it was, in many ways, untouched ground. It was virgin territory. When I was working on ''Sandman'', I felt a lot of the time that I was actually picking up a machete and heading out into the jungle. I got to write in places and do things that nobody had ever done before. When I’m writing novels I’m painfully aware that I’m working in a medium that people have been writing absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant things for, you know, three-four thousand years now. You know, you can go back. We have things like ''The Golden Ass''. And you go, well, I don’t know that I’m as good as that and that’s two and a half thousand years old. But with comics I felt like – I can do stuff nobody has ever done. I can do stuff nobody has ever thought of. And I could and it was enormously fun.”

In 2009, Gaiman wrote a two-part Batman story for DC Comics to follow ''Batman R.I.P.'' It is titled "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" a play off of the classic Superman story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore. He also contributed a twelve-page Metamorpho story drawn by Mike Allred for ''Wednesday Comics'', a weekly newspaper-style series.

Novels

In a collaboration with author Terry Pratchett (best known for his series of Discworld novels), Gaiman's first novel ''Good Omens'' was published in 1990. In recent years Pratchett has said that while the entire novel was a collaborative effort and most of the ideas could be credited to both of them, Pratchett did a larger portion of writing and editing if for no other reason than Gaiman's scheduled involvement with ''Sandman''.

The 1996 novelization of Gaiman's teleplay for the BBC mini-series ''Neverwhere'' was his first solo novel. The novel was released in tandem with the television series though it presents some notable differences from the television series. In 1999 first printings of his fantasy novel ''Stardust'' were released. The novel has been released both as a standard novel and in an illustrated text edition.

''American Gods'' became one of Gaiman's best-selling and multi-award winning novels upon its release in 2001. A special 10th Anniversary edition was released, with the "author's preferred text" 12,000 words longer than the original mass-market editions. This is identical to the signed and numbered limited edition that was released by Hill House Publishers in 2003. This is also the version released by Headline, Gaiman's publisher in the UK, even before the 10th Anniversary edition. He did an extensive sold-out book tour celebrating the 10th Anniversary and promoting this edition in 2011.

In 2005, his novel ''Anansi Boys'' was released worldwide. The book deals with Anansi ('Mr. Nancy'), a supporting character in ''American Gods''. Specifically it traces the relationship of his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unaware Englishman of American origin, as they explore their common heritage. It debuted at number one on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list.

In late 2008, Gaiman released a new children's book, ''The Graveyard Book''. It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. It is heavily influenced by Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book''. , it had been on the New York Times Bestseller children's list for fifteen weeks.

As of 2008, Gaiman has several books planned. After a tour of China, he decided to write a non-fiction book about his travels and the general mythos of China. Following that, will be a new 'adult' novel (his first since 2005's ''Anansi Boys''). After that, another 'all-ages' book (in the same vein as ''Coraline'' and ''The Graveyard Book''). Following that, Gaiman says that he will release another non-fiction book called ''The Dream Catchers''. In December of 2011, Gaiman announced that in January 2012 he would begin work on what is essentially, "American Gods 2."

Film and screenwriting

Gaiman wrote the 1996 BBC dark fantasy television series ''Neverwhere''. He cowrote the screenplay for the movie ''MirrorMask'' with his old friend Dave McKean for McKean to direct. In addition, he wrote the localized English language script to the anime movie ''Princess Mononoke'', based on a translation of the Japanese script.

He cowrote the script for Robert Zemeckis's ''Beowulf'' with Roger Avary, a collaboration that has proved productive for both writers. Gaiman has expressed interest in collaborating on a film adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

He was the only person other than J. Michael Straczynski to write a ''Babylon 5'' script in the last three seasons, contributing the season five episode "Day of the Dead".

Gaiman has also written at least three drafts of a screenplay adaptation of Nicholson Baker's novel ''The Fermata'' for director Robert Zemeckis, although the project was stalled while Zemeckis made ''The Polar Express'' and the Gaiman-Roger Avary written ''Beowulf'' film.

Neil Gaiman was featured in the ''History Channel'' documentary ''Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked''.

Several of Gaiman's original works have been optioned or greenlighted for film adaptation, most notably ''Stardust'', which premiered in August 2007 and stars Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Claire Danes, directed by Matthew Vaughn. A stop-motion version of ''Coraline'' was released on 6 February 2009, with Henry Selick directing and Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher in the leading voice-actor roles.

In 2007, Gaiman announced that after ten years in development, the feature film of ''Death: The High Cost of Living'' would finally begin production with a screenplay by Gaiman that he would direct for Warner Independent. Don Murphy and Susan Montford are the producers, and Guillermo del Toro is the film's executive producer.

Seeing Ear Theatre performed two of Gaiman's audio theatre plays, "Snow, Glass, Apples", Gaiman's retelling of Snow White and "Murder Mysteries", a story of heaven before the Fall in which the first crime is committed. Both audio plays were published in the collection ''Smoke and Mirrors'' in 1998.

Gaiman's 2009 Newbery Medal winning book ''The Graveyard Book'' will be made into a movie, with Neil Jordan being announced as the director during Gaiman's appearance on ''The Today Show'', 27 January 2009.

Gaiman wrote an episode of the long-running science fiction series ''Doctor Who'', broadcast in 2011 during Matt Smith's second series as the Doctor. Shooting began in August 2010 for this story, whose original title was "The House of Nothing" but has been retitled as "The Doctor's Wife. In 2011, it was announced that Gaiman would be writing the script to a new film version of ''Journey to the West''.

Blog and Twitter

In February 2001, when Gaiman had completed writing ''American Gods'', his publishers set up a promotional web site featuring a weblog in which Gaiman described the day-to-day process of revising, publishing, and promoting the novel. After the novel was published, the web site evolved into a more general Official Neil Gaiman Website.

Gaiman generally posts to the blog describing the day-to-day process of being Neil Gaiman and writing, revising, publishing, or promoting whatever the current project is. He also posts reader emails and answers questions, which gives him unusually direct and immediate interaction with fans. One of his answers on why he writes the blog is "because writing is, like death, a lonely business."

The original ''American Gods'' blog was extracted for publication in the NESFA Press collection of Gaiman miscellany, ''Adventures in the Dream Trade''.

To celebrate the 7th anniversary of the blog, the novel ''American Gods'' was provided free of charge online for a month..

Gaiman is an active user of the social networking site Twitter with over 1.6 million followers as of January 2012, using the username ''@neilhimself''. Gaiman also runs a Tumblr account on which he primarily answers fan questions.

Personal life

Home and family

Gaiman lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. and has lived there since 1992. Gaiman moved there to be close to the family of his then-wife, Mary McGrath, with whom he has three children: Michael, Holly, and Madeleine.

Gaiman is married to songwriter and performer Amanda Palmer. The couple publicly announced that they were dating in June 2009, announced their engagement on Twitter on 1 January 2010, and confirmed their engagement on their respective websites two weeks later. On 16 November 2010, Amanda Palmer hosted a non-legally binding flash mob wedding for Gaiman's birthday in New Orleans. They were legally married on 2 January 2011. The wedding took place in the parlour of writers Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon.

Friendship with Tori Amos

One of Gaiman's most commented-upon friendships is with the musician Tori Amos, a ''Sandman'' fan who became friends with Gaiman after making a reference to "Neil and the Dream King" on her 1991 demo tape, and whom he included as a character (a talking tree) in ''Stardust''. Amos also mentions Gaiman in her songs, "Tear in Your Hand" ("If you need me, me and Neil'll be hangin' out with the dream king. Neil says hi by the way"), "Space Dog" ("Where's Neil when you need him?"), "Horses" ("But will you find me if Neil makes me a tree?"), "Carbon" ("Get me Neil on the line, no I can't hold. Have him read, 'Snow, Glass, Apples' where nothing is what it seems"), "Sweet Dreams" ("You're forgetting to fly, darling, when you sleep"), and "Not Dying Today" ("Neil is thrilled he can claim he's mammalian, 'but the bad news,' he said, 'girl you're a dandelion'"). He also wrote stories for the tour book of ''Boys for Pele'' and ''Scarlet's Walk'', a letter for the tour book of ''American Doll Posse'', and the stories behind each girl in her album ''Strange Little Girls''. Amos penned the introduction for his novel ''Death: the High Cost of Living'', and posed for the cover. She also wrote a song called "Sister Named Desire" based on his ''Sandman'' character, which was included on his anthology, ''Where's Neil When You Need Him?''.

Gaiman is godfather to Tori Amos's daughter Tash, and wrote a poem called "Blueberry Girl" for Tori and Tash. The poem has been turned into a book by the illustrator Charles Vess. Gaiman read the poem aloud to an audience at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in San Francisco on 5 October 2008 during his book reading tour for ''The Graveyard Book''. It was published in March 2009 with the title, ''Blueberry Girl''.

Litigation

In 1993, Gaiman was contracted by Todd McFarlane to write a single issue of ''Spawn'', a popular title at the newly created Image Comics company. McFarlane was promoting his new title by having guest authors Gaiman, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Dave Sim each write a single issue.

In issue #9 of the series, Gaiman introduced the characters Angela, Cogliostro, and Medieval Spawn. Prior to this issue, Spawn was an assassin who worked for the government and came back as a reluctant agent of Hell but had no direction. In Angela, a cruel and malicious angel, Gaiman introduced a character who threatened Spawn's existence, as well as providing a moral opposite. Cogliostro was introduced as a mentor character for exposition and instruction, providing guidance. Medieval Spawn introduced a history and precedent that not all Spawns were self-serving or evil, giving additional character development to Malebolgia, the demon that creates Hellspawn.

As intended, all three characters were used repeatedly throughout the next decade by Todd McFarlane within the wider Spawn universe. In papers filed by Gaiman in early 2002, however, he claimed that the characters were jointly owned by their scripter (himself) and artist (McFarlane), not merely by McFarlane in his role as the creator of the series. Disagreement over who owned the rights to a character was the primary motivation for McFarlane and other artists to form Image Comics (although that argument related more towards disagreements between writers and artists as character creators). As McFarlane used the characters without Gaiman's permission or royalty payments, Gaiman believed his copyrighted work was being infringed upon, which violated their original, oral, agreement. McFarlane initially agreed that Gaiman had not signed away any rights to the characters, and negotiated with Gaiman to effectively 'swap' McFarlane's interest in the character Marvelman (McFarlane believes he purchased interest in the character when Eclipse Comics was liquidated; Gaiman is interested in being able to continue his aborted run on that title) but later claimed that Gaiman's work had been work-for-hire and that McFarlane owned all of Gaiman's creations entirely. The presiding judge, however, ruled against their agreement being work for hire, based in large part on the legal requirement that "copyright assignments must be in writing."

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court ruling in February 2004 granting joint ownership of the characters to Gaiman and McFarlane. On the specific issue of Cogliostro, presiding Judge John Shabaz proclaimed "The expressive work that is the comic-book character Count Nicholas Cogliostro was the joint work of Gaiman and McFarlane—their contributions strike us as quite equal—and both are entitled to ownership of the copyright". Similar analysis lead to similar results for the other two characters, Angela and Medieval Spawn.

This legal battle was brought by Gaiman and the specifically formed Marvels and Miracles, LLC, which Gaiman created in order to help sort out the legal rights surrounding Marvelman (see the ownership of Marvelman sub-section of the Marvelman article). Gaiman wrote ''Marvel 1602 ''in 2003 to help fund this project. All of Marvel Comics' profits for the original issues of the series went to Marvels and Miracles. In 2009, Marvel Comics purchased Marvelman.

Gaiman returned to court over three more Spawn characters, Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany, that are claimed to be "derivative of the three he co-created with McFarlane." The original three characters, whose first appearance was never reprinted in ''Spawn'' trade paperback collections, are just now appearing printed for the first time. The judge ruled that Gaiman was right in his claims and gave McFarlane until the start of September 2010 to settle matters.

Gaiman is a major supporter and board member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Literary allusions

Gaiman's work is known for a high degree of allusiveness. Meredith Collins, for instance, has commented upon the degree to which his novel ''Stardust'' depends on allusions to Victorian fairy tales and culture. Particularly in ''The Sandman'', literary figures and characters appear often; the character of Fiddler's Green is modelled visually on G. K. Chesterton, both William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer appear as characters, as do several characters from within ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' and ''The Tempest''. The comic also draws from numerous mythologies and historical periods. Such allusions are not unique to ''Sandman''; ''Stardust'', for example, also has a character called Shakespeare.

Clay Smith has argued that this sort of allusiveness serves to situate Gaiman as a strong authorial presence in his own works, often to the exclusion of his collaborators. However, Smith's viewpoint is in the minority: to many, if there is a problem with Gaiman scholarship and intertextuality it is that "... his literary merit and vast popularity have propelled him into the nascent comics canon so quickly that there is not yet a basis of critical scholarship about his work."

David Rudd takes a more generous view in his study of the novel ''Coraline'', where he argues that the work plays and riffs productively on Sigmund Freud's notion of the Uncanny, or the ''Unheimlich''.

Though Gaiman's work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure laid out in Joseph Campbell's ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'', Gaiman says that he started reading ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'' but refused to finish it: "I think I got about half way through ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'' and found myself thinking if this is true – I don’t want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it’s true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."

Selected awards and honours

1991 World Fantasy Award for short fiction for the ''Sandman'' issue, "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

1991-1993 ''Comics Buyer's Guide'' Award for Favorite Writer

1997–2000 ''Comics Buyer's Guide'' Award for Favorite Writer nominations

1991 Favourite Comic Book Story for ''The Sandman'' 1994 Favourite Comic Book Story for ''The Sandman'' 1997 Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Defender of Liberty award 1991 Locus and World Fantasy Awards nomination for ''Good Omens'' 1999 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel nomination for ''Stardust'' 1999 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for the illustrated version of ''Stardust''. 2000 Hugo Award for Best Related Book nomination for ''The Sandman: The Dream Hunters'' 2000 Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative for ''The Sandman: The Dream Hunters''

2001 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel for ''American Gods''

2002 Hugo Award for Best Novel for ''American Gods'' 2002 Nebula Award for Best Novel for ''American Gods'' 2002 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel for ''American Gods''

2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella for ''Coraline''

2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella for ''Coraline''

2003 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book for ''Coraline'' 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers for ''Coraline''

2004 Hugo Award for the story ''A Study in Emerald'' (in a ceremony the author presided over himself, having volunteered for the job before his story was nominated).

2004 Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative for ''The Sandman: Endless Nights''

2004 Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Scenario for ''The Sandman: Season of Mists'' 2005 The William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie nomination for ''MirrorMask'' The other nominated films were ''Green Street Hooligans'', ''Nine Lives'', ''Up for Grabs'' and ''Opie Gets Laid''. 2005 Quill Book Award for Graphic Novels for ''Marvel 1602''

2006 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for ''Anansi Boys''

2006 The British Fantasy Awards for Best Novel for ''Anansi Boys''. 2006 Locus Fantasy Awards for ''Anansi Boys''. The book was also nominated for a Hugo Award, but Gaiman asked for it to be withdrawn from the list of nominations, stating that he wanted to give other writers a chance, and it was really more fantasy than science fiction. Gaiman has won 19 Eisner Awards for his comics work. 1990-1994 Squiddy Award for Best Writer and was named Best Writer of the 1990s in the Squiddy Awards for the decade. 2007 Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award 2007 Comic-Con Icon award presented with the at the Scream Awards. 2009 Newbery Medal for ''The Graveyard Book'' 2009 Audies: Children's 8–12 and Audiobook of the year for the audio version of ''The Graveyard Book''. 2009 British Fantasy Award for Best Novel shortlist for ''The Graveyard Book'' 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novel for ''The Graveyard Book'' presented at the 2009 Worldcon in Montreal where he was also the Professional Guest of Honor.

2009 The Booktrust Teenage Prize for ''The Graveyard Book''

2010 Gaiman was selected as the Honorary Chair of National Library Week by the American Library Association. 2010 Carnegie Medal in Literature for ''The Graveyard Book''. 2010 Locus Award for Best Short for ''An Invocation of Incuriosity'', published in ''Songs of the Dying Earth''

Bibliography

Notes

References

Neil Gaiman Bibliography

External links

Neil Gaiman's personal website

Neil Gaiman's weblog

''New Yorker'' profile of Gaiman by Dana Goodyear, 25 January 2010.

An Evening with Neil Gaiman @ Your Library

In-depth interview: Neil Gaiman in conversation with Tom Chatfield

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