Geoffrey Wolff (born 1937) is an American novelist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer. Among his honors and recognition are the Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994) and fellowships of the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy in Berlin (2007), [1] and the Guggenheim Foundation. His younger brother Tobias Wolff is also an award-winning writer.
Geoffrey Wolff was born in Hollywood, California, as the first son to "Duke" Arthur Samuels and Rosemary ( née Loftus) Wolff. He is the older brother of the novelist and memoirist Tobias Wolff. Their parents separated when Geoffrey was twelve, his brother living with their mother, and Geoffrey with their father; their parents eventually divorced. He has described the adventure of his upbringing with his father on the East Coast in an acclaimed memoir, The Duke of Deception (1979), which was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize (Tobias has treated with similar candor his own years with their mother in a memoir, This Boy's Life , published in 1989.). [2]
Geoffrey Wolff was educated at the Choate School, graduating in 1955; at Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude in 1960; and at Churchill College, Cambridge. He has taught at Robert College (now Boğaziçi University) in Istanbul, Turkey; at Princeton, and at the University of California, Irvine. There he was professor of English and comparative literature and, from 1995 to 2006, director of the influential Graduate Fiction Program. He has also been a book editor at the Washington Post and at Newsweek.
Wolff is the author of six novels; biographies of Harry Crosby, John O'Hara, and Joshua Slocum; a volume of essays, and other works of non-fiction in several genres. He has edited a selection of Edward Hoagland's writings. He lives in Bath, Maine, with his wife Priscilla. [3]
This section lacks ISBNs for the books listed.(June 2018) |
Geoffrey V, called the Fair or Plantagenet, was the count of Anjou, Touraine and Maine by inheritance from 1129, and also duke of Normandy by his marriage claim, and conquest, from 1144.
Joshua Slocum was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world. He was a Nova Scotian-born, naturalised American seaman and adventurer, and a noted writer. In 1900 he wrote a book about his journey, Sailing Alone Around the World, which became an international best-seller. He disappeared in November 1909 while aboard his boat, the Spray.
Richard Ford is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe.
John Henry O'Hara was an American writer. He was one of America's most prolific writers of short stories, credited with helping to invent The New Yorker magazine short story style. He became a best-selling novelist before the age of 30 with Appointment in Samarra and BUtterfield 8. While O'Hara's legacy as a writer is debated, his work was praised by such contemporaries as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and his champions rank him highly among the major under-appreciated American writers of the 20th century. Few college students educated after O'Hara's death in 1970 have discovered him, chiefly because he refused to allow his work to be reprinted in anthologies used to teach literature at the college level.
Andre Jules Dubus II was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays.
Newhalem is a small unincorporated community on the Skagit River in the western foothills of the North Cascades, in Whatcom County, northwestern Washington, United States.
Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American short story writer, memoirist, novelist, and teacher of creative writing. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life (1989) and In Pharaoh's Army (1994). He has written four short story collections and two novels including The Barracks Thief (1984), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Wolff received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in September 2015.
Old School is an American semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel by Tobias Wolff that was first partially published in The New Yorker as a short story ahead of novelization in 2003. It acts a memoir for a fictional unnamed writer, who recalls his senior year at a New England preparatory school in 1960–1961. The novel explores intertwining themes of identity, class, belonging and literature. It was a finalist for the 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
The Princeton Tigertones are an internationally known all-male collegiate a cappella group from Princeton University. The group was founded in 1946, and since then has produced thirty-two albums. The Tigertones, known informally as "The 'Tones", draw from a repertoire of nearly a hundred songs that have been arranged exclusively by members of the group, and which range in genre from traditional choral arrangements to barbershop quartet standards, modern jazz, the "American songbook", and contemporary pop culture hits.
Christopher John Offutt is an American writer. He is most widely known for his short stories and novels, but he has also published three memoirs and multiple nonfiction articles. In 2005, he had a story included in a comic book collection edited by Michael Chabon, and another in the anthology Noir. He has written episodes for the TV series True Blood and Weeds.
Max Farrand was an American historian who taught at several universities and was the first director of the Huntington Library.
Anthony Dey Hoagland was an American poet. His poetry collection, What Narcissism Means to Me (2003), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other honors included two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, and a fellowship to the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. His poems and criticism have appeared in such publications as Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, AGNI, Threepenny Review, The Gettysburg Review, Ninth Letter, Southern Indiana Review, American Poetry Review and Harvard Review.
Joshua Mostel is an American actor with numerous film and Broadway credits. The son of Zero Mostel, he is best known for his supporting roles in films such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Harry and Tonto (1974), Sophie's Choice (1982), City Slickers (1991), Billy Madison (1995), and Big Daddy (1999).
This Boy's Life is a 1993 American biographical coming-of-age drama film directed by Michael Caton-Jones. It is based on the eponymous memoir by author Tobias Wolff. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Ellen Barkin. This was DiCaprio's theatrical film debut. The film also features Chris Cooper, Carla Gugino, Eliza Dushku and Tobey Maguire's first credited appearance in a feature-length movie.
Piers Gerald Mackesy was a British military historian who taught at the University of Oxford.
James Dudley Houston was an American novelist, poet and editor. He wrote nine novels and a number of non-fiction works.
Daniel Israel Arnon was a Polish-born American plant physiologist and National Medal of Science recipient whose research led to greater insights into the operation of photosynthesis and nutrition in plants.
John Joseph Fisher is an American businessman. He is the principal owner of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball, the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer and the Texas Rattlers of the Professional Bull Riders organization. He is a former part-owner of the San Francisco Giants, having purchased a stake in the team in 1992 with his father as part of an investment group formed in an ultimately-successful effort to prevent the team from relocating to Tampa Bay, Florida. He sold that stake away in order to complete a sale to buy the Athletics. He is the son of Gap founders Donald Fisher and Doris F. Fisher.
Middle Eastern Americans are Americans of Middle Eastern background. Although once considered Asian Americans, the modern definition of "Asian American" now excludes people with West Asian backgrounds.