Ben Downing (writer)

Last updated

Ben Downing (born April 17, 1967) is an American writer, editor, and teacher. Specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British social life and literature (with a particular emphasis on travel writing), he has written essays, articles, and reviews on figures such as Robert Louis Stevenson, [1] Duff Cooper, [2] Robert Byron, [3] Anthony Powell, [4] Peter Fleming, [5] Wilfred Thesiger, [6] and Patrick Leigh Fermor. [7] His biography of Janet Ross, who for many years was the doyenne of Florence’s Anglo-American colony, was published in 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. [8]

Contents

Downing also writes poetry. His collection The Calligraphy Shop appeared in 2003, and he continues to publish poems in The Atlantic , [9] The New Criterion , [10] The Yale Review , [11] and elsewhere.

Since 1993 Downing has worked at Parnassus: Poetry in Review , of which he is currently the co-editor. [12] He has taught literary seminars and workshops at Columbia, [8] Bryn Mawr, [13] and the 92nd St. Y, [14] and he currently teaches a small private class, known as The English Salon, for advanced non-native speakers of English. He lives in New York City and graduated from Harvard University. [15]

Works

Books

Poems

Articles

Related Research Articles

Patrick Leigh Fermor British author and soldier, 1915–2011

Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He was prominent behind the lines in the Cretan resistance in the Second World War, and widely seen as Britain's greatest living travel writer, based on books such as A Time of Gifts (1977). A BBC journalist once termed him "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene".

Elizabeth Bishop American poet and short-story writer

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976. Dwight Garner argued that she was perhaps "the most purely gifted poet of the 20th century."

National Book Critics Circle Award Annual American literary awards

The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English". The first NBCC awards were announced and presented January 16, 1976.

The Duff Cooper Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of history, biography, political science or occasionally poetry, published in English or French. The prize was established in honour of Duff Cooper, a British diplomat, Cabinet member and author. The prize was first awarded in 1956 to Alan Moorehead for his Gallipoli. At present, the winner receives a first edition copy of Duff Cooper's autobiography Old Men Forget and a cheque for £5,000.

Richmond Lattimore

Richmond Alexander Lattimore was an American poet and classicist known for his translations of the Greek classics, especially his versions of the Iliad and Odyssey.

Charles Wright (poet) Writer (1935−[[Category:Errors reported by Module String]]String Module Error: Target string is empty)

Charles Wright is an American poet. He shared the National Book Award in 1983 for Country Music: Selected Early Poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for Black Zodiac. From 2014 to 2015, he served as the 50th Poet Laureate of the United States.

C. K. Williams American poet, critic and translator

Charles Kenneth "C. K." Williams was an American poet, critic and translator. Williams won many poetry awards. Flesh and Blood won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987. Repair (1999) won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a National Book Award finalist and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The Singing won the 2003 National Book Award and Williams received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2005. The 2012 film Tar relates aspects of Williams' life using his poetry.

Stuart Dybek is an American writer of fiction and poetry.

John Berryman American poet

John Allyn McAlpin Berryman was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in the "confessional" school of poetry. His best-known work is The Dream Songs.

August Kleinzahler American poet (born 1949)

August Kleinzahler is an American poet.

Carl Phillips American writer and poet (born 1959)

Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis.

Artemis Cooper, Lady Beevor FRSL is a British writer, primarily of biographies. She is the wife of historian Sir Antony Beevor.

<i>Los Angeles Times</i> Book Prize American literary awards

Since 1980, the Los Angeles Times has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, and young adult fiction. In addition, the Robert Kirsch Award is presented annually to a living author with a substantial connection to the American West. It is named in honor of Robert Kirsch, the Los Angeles Times book critic from 1952 until his death in 1980 whose idea it was to establish the book prizes.

<i>Station Island</i> (poetry collection)

Station Island is the sixth collection of original poetry written by the Northern Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. It is dedicated to the Northern Irish playwright Brian Friel. The collection was first published in the UK and Ireland in 1984 by Faber & Faber and was then published in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1985. Seamus Heaney has been recorded reading this collection on the Seamus Heaney Collected Poems album.

Janet McDonald was an American writer of young adult novels as well as the author of Project Girl, a memoir about her early life in Brooklyn's Farragut Houses and struggle to achieve an Ivy League education. Her best known children's book is Spellbound, which tells the story of a teenaged mother who wins a spelling competition and a college scholarship. The book was named as one of the American Library Association's eighty-four Best Book for Young Adults in 2002.

Jane Alison Australian author

Jane Alison is an Australian author.

Franklin D'Olier Reeve was an American academic, writer, poet, Russian translator, and editor. He was also the father of "Superman" actor Christopher Reeve. He was the grandson of the first American Legion national commander, Franklin D'Olier.

Christian Wiman is an American poet and editor born in 1966 and raised in the small west Texas town of Snyder. He graduated from Washington and Lee University and has taught at Northwestern University, Stanford University, Lynchburg College in Virginia, and the Prague School of Economics. In 2003, he became editor of the oldest American magazine of verse, Poetry, a role he stepped down from in June 2013. Wiman is now on the faculty of Yale University, where he teaches courses on Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.

Asali Solomon is an American professor, author, and novelist. She grew up in West Philadelphia, and attended Henry C. Lea Elementary, The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Central High School. In 2007, she was named a 5 under 35 honoree.

Lina Waterfield

Caroline Lucie 'Lina' Waterfield OBE was an English author and Italian correspondent for The Observer and The Sunday Times, who founded the British Institute of Florence.

References

  1. ↑ "An Old Gypsy Nature," The New Criterion, June 1998
  2. ↑ "Duff Cooper's Game Book," The New Criterion, March 2006
  3. ↑ "Insolent Humanism," The New Criterion, March 2004
  4. ↑ "Of Osberts and Evelyns," The New Criterion, May 2001
  5. ↑ "Peter Fleming at 100," The New Criterion, May 2007
  6. ↑ ""On the Outlandish Life of Wilfred Thesiger," The New Criterion, November 2006". Archived from the original on 2011-06-14. Retrieved 2012-07-04.
  7. ↑ "Philhellene's Progress: Patrick Leigh Fermor," The New Criterion, January 2001
  8. 1 2 Author page, Irene Skolnick Literary Agency
  9. ↑ Author page at The Atlantic
  10. ↑ Author page at The New Criterion
  11. ↑ "Contributors page at The Yale Review". Archived from the original on 2013-02-01. Retrieved 2012-07-04.
  12. ↑ Staff at Parnassus: Poetry in Review
  13. ↑ "Classes at Bryn Mawr". Archived from the original on 2013-10-19. Retrieved 2012-07-04.
  14. ↑ Classes at the 92nd St. Y
  15. ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ben-downing [ bare URL ]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.