Augusten Burroughs | |
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Born | Christopher Richter Robison October 23, 1965 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Occupation |
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Period | 2000–present |
Subject | Memoir, humor |
Notable works | Running with Scissors (2002), A Wolf at the Table (2008) |
Spouse | Christopher Schelling (m. 2013) |
Relatives | John Elder Robison (brother) |
Website | |
www |
Augusten Xon Burroughs (born Christopher Richter Robison, October 23, 1965) is an American writer best known for his New York Times bestselling memoir Running with Scissors (2002).
Christopher Richter Robison was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the younger of two sons of poet Margaret Robison and John G. Robison, former head of the philosophy department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. [1] [2] [3]
He is eight years younger than his brother, fellow memoirist John Elder Robison. He was raised in various towns in Massachusetts, including Shutesbury, Amherst, and Northampton. His older brother had already escaped the unstable home before their parents divorced on July 29, 1978. [4] His mother then sent the 12-year-old Christopher to live with the family of her psychiatrist, Dr. Rodolph Harvey Turcotte, whose ever-changing collection of children, adopted children and patients lived in a large ramshackle property in Northampton. [4]
Robison's mother assigned legal guardianship to Turcotte, who believed that children became adults at 13. A few months after Robison moved in, Turcotte allowed him to drop out of sixth grade.
Robison obtained a GED at age 17. At age 18, living on his own in Boston, he legally changed his name to Augusten Xon Burroughs. [5] He later enrolled at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as a pre-med student, dropping out before the end of the first semester. He decided to settle in New York City and worked for a Manhattan-based advertising company. In 1996, he sought treatment for alcoholism at a rehabilitation center in Minnesota before returning to Manhattan.
Some of Burroughs' childhood experiences were chronicled in his successful first memoir, Running with Scissors (2002), which was later made into a film by the same name.
In addition to Scissors, Burroughs penned a second memoir, Dry (2003), about his experience during and after treatment for alcoholism. It was followed by two collections of memoir essays, Magical Thinking (2003) and Possible Side Effects (2006). His first novel, Sellevision , was published in 2000. [6]
Burroughs' writing focuses on subjects such as advertising, psychiatrists, religious families, and home shopping networks. It has appeared in publications such as The New York Times , House & Garden , BlackBook , New York , The Times , Bark, Attitude , and Out . Burroughs writes a monthly column for Details . Early in his career, he was a regular commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition .
In 2005, Universal Studios and Red Wagon Productions bought the rights to a film based on a then-unreleased memoir about Burroughs' relationship with his father. The book, called A Wolf at the Table , was released on April 29, 2008.
In October 2009, Burroughs released You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas , a book of short Christmas stories based on true events that occurred during his childhood.
In 2012, Burroughs released This Is How , a book of advice and memoirs.
In 2016, Burroughs released Lust & Wonder: A Memoir , a memoir about his life after rehab, and his relationships prior to and leading to his husband, Schelling.
Burroughs released Toil & Trouble: A Memoir, in October 2019. The work details his experience coming out as "a witch" and moving from his apartment in New York City into a mansion in Connecticut with his husband. [7]
The above books were published by St. Martin's Press and Picador.
He published a children's book in 2023, My Little Thief, which was illustrated by Bonnie Lui and published by Christy Ottaviano Books.
In a January 2005 interview, reflecting on his life with his then partner, graphic designer Dennis Pilsits, [8] Burroughs said paying tax should allow same-sex couples full legal entitlements:
That's what gay people need to be allowed to do – get married. Not have domestic partnerships; that's not acceptable. I don't believe for a moment [gay marriage] would destroy the sanctity of marriage. But let's just say for a moment that it does. Well, then the sanctity of marriage just has to be destroyed. It's just too bad. You can't have one set of benefits and only give them to some of the people. [9]
Burroughs divides time between New York City and Amherst, Massachusetts. [10] On April 1, 2013, Burroughs married his longtime agent and companion Christopher Schelling at the Staten Island Borough Hall of New York City. [11]
Burroughs has been profiled in People , The Guardian , and Entertainment Weekly , where he ranked 15 on the 2005 list of "The 25 Funniest People in America" and was named to the magazine's "It List".
Burroughs was presented with a special Trustee Award at the Lambda Literary Awards in 2013. [12]
The family of Dr. Turcotte (who died in 2000), Burroughs' legal guardian when he was a child, were concerned about the depiction of the Finch family in Running with Scissors. [4] In August 2007, Burroughs and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, settled with the Turcotte family, who stated that their presentation as the Finch family was largely fictional [13] and written in a sensational manner. The Turcottes originally sought damages of $2 million for invasion of privacy, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Burroughs defended his work as "entirely accurate," but agreed to call the work a "book" (instead of "memoir") in the author's note, to alter the acknowledgments page in future editions to recognize the Turcotte family's conflicting memories of described events, and express regret for "any unintentional harm" to the Turcotte family. [14]
In August 2007, when the suit was settled, Burroughs stated:
I consider this not only a personal victory but a victory for all memoirists. I still maintain that the book is an entirely accurate memoir, and that it was not fictionalized or sensationalized in any way. I did not embellish or invent elements. We had a very strong case because I had the truth on my side. [15]
In October 2007, Burroughs further stated that he felt vindicated by the settlement:
I'm not at all sorry that I wrote it. And you know, the suit settled – it settled in my favor. I didn't change a word of the memoir, not one word of it. It's still a memoir, it's marketed as a memoir, [the Turcottes] agreed one hundred percent that it is a memoir. [16]
Running with Scissors was made into a film in 2006. It was directed by Ryan Murphy, produced by Brad Pitt, and starred Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Evan Rachel Wood. Bening was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role.
Amherst is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. Amherst has a council–manager form of government, and is considered a city under Massachusetts state law. Amherst is one of several Massachusetts municipalities that have city forms of government but retain "The Town of" in their official names. At the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County. The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, three of the Five Colleges.
Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. is an American writer notable for Tales of the City, a series of novels set in San Francisco.
Peter Lamborn Wilson was an American anarchist author and poet, primarily known for his concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones, short-lived spaces which elude formal structures of control. During the 1970s, Wilson lived in the Middle East and worked at the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy under the guidance of Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, where he explored mysticism and translated Persian texts. Starting from the 1980s he wrote numerous political writings under the pen name of Hakim Bey, illustrating his theory of "ontological anarchy".
Haven Kimmel is an American author, novelist, and poet.
Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict, or Junky, is a 1953 novel by American Beat generation writer William S. Burroughs. The book follows "William Lee" as he struggles with his addiction to morphine and heroin. Burroughs based the story on his own experiences with drugs, and he published it under the pen name William Lee. Some critics view the character William Lee as simply Burroughs himself; in this reading, Junkie is a largely-autobiographical memoir. Others view Lee as a fictional character based on the author.
Running with Scissors is a 2002 memoir by American writer Augusten Burroughs. The book tells the story of Burroughs's bizarre childhood life after his mother, a chain-smoking aspiring poet, sent him to live with her psychiatrist. Running with Scissors spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Running with Scissors is a 2006 American comedy drama film written and directed by Ryan Murphy, based on Augusten Burroughs' 2002 memoir of the same name, and starring Joseph Cross, Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, Jill Clayburgh and Gwyneth Paltrow. The semi-autobiographical account of Burroughs' childhood, based on his best-selling book, received mixed reviews as a film.
Sellevision (2000), a novel, is the first published work by Augusten Burroughs, author of the best-selling books Running with Scissors,Dry, and Magical Thinking. Unlike Burroughs’ subsequent memoirs, Sellevision is a work of fiction.
Joseph Michael Cross is an American actor and producer. He began work as a child actor, starring in the 1998 films Desperate Measures, Wide Awake, and Jack Frost. He won the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture for Running with Scissors (2006), and co-starred in Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Untraceable (2008), Milk (2008), and Lincoln (2012).
Victor Bockris is an English-born, U.S.-based author, primarily of biographies of artists, writers, and musicians.
Dry is a memoir written by American writer Augusten Burroughs. It describes the author's battle with alcoholism. Dry was written before Running with Scissors, but was published second. Dry reached number 24 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Hardcover Nonfiction.
A Wolf at the Table is a 2008 memoir by Augusten Burroughs that recounts his turbulent childhood relationship with his father. In the summer of 2007, Burroughs announced on his official website that the book would be released on April 29, 2008. In an interview with Wikinews, Burroughs said that many of his fans may have trouble with the book. A Wolf at the Table spent six weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, reaching number 2 in its first week. It also reached number 9 on the Wall Street Journal's Best Seller List.
John Elder Robison is the American author of the 2007 memoir Look Me in the Eye, detailing his life with undiagnosed Asperger syndrome and savant abilities, and of three other books. Robison wrote his first book at age 49.
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's is a New York Times bestselling book by John Elder Robison, chronicling the author's life with Asperger syndrome and tough times growing up.
Rich Cohen is an American non-fiction writer. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. He is co-creator, with Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter, of the HBO series Vinyl. His works have been New York Times bestsellers, New York Times Notable Books, and have been collected in the Best American Essays series. He lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut, with his wife and children.
Possible Side Effects is a 2006 memoir by American writer Augusten Burroughs. The book contains stories from the life of Augusten Burroughs, ranging from his childhood to the near-present.
You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas is the sixth memoir by Augusten Burroughs. It was released on October 27, 2009.
Craig Lesley is a memoirist and novelist of the modern American west. He has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize, first for his novel The Sky Fisherman in 1996, and again for Storm Riders in 2001. He has received three Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Awards, and an Oregon Book Award. His novel Winterkill was the first to win the Golden Spur award for Best Novel and Medicine Pipe Bearer's for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America He has been the recipient of several national fellowships and holds a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Whitman College.
This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More for Young and Old Alike is the eighth book by Augusten Burroughs. It was released on May 8, 2012.
Lust & Wonder: A Memoir is the ninth book by Augusten Burroughs. It was released on March 29, 2016.
Dennis and I have split. It is painful. But we're talking, which we have not done enough of. For the dogs, it just means 2 sets of toys.