Joanna Scott

Last updated

Joanna Scott
Born (1960-06-22) June 22, 1960 (age 64)
Darien, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation
  • author
  • professor
Education
Period1987–present
Notable awards MacArthur Fellowship (1992)
Spouse James Longenbach
Children2

Joanna Scott (born June 22, 1960) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Her award-winning fiction is known for its wide-ranging subject matter and its incorporation of historical figures into imagined narratives.

Contents

A native of Darien, Connecticut, Scott graduated from Trinity College in Hartford and earned a master's degree from Brown University. In addition to her work as an author, she has had a career in academia, teaching at the University of Maryland and the University of Rochester, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1988. As of 2023 Scott is the Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester.

Early life and education

Joanna Scott was born on June 22, 1960, the youngest child of Walter Lee and Yvonne Scott. She was raised in Darien, Connecticut, with her three older brothers. [1] Her father worked in advertising, and her mother was a psychologist for the school system in Stamford, Connecticut. [2] Scott has described her childhood as one of extraordinary freedom but also isolation, both of which nurtured her imagination. [1] As a student at Darien High School, she encountered the novels of William Faulkner, which she has described as an "unsettling" experience that prompted her first attempts at writing fiction. [3]

After taking a bus trip across the United States, [4] Scott enrolled at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where she majored in English and studied under the author Stephen Minot. She spent one semester in Rome and one academic year at Barnard College before graduating in 1983. She then spent a year as an assistant at a literary agency in New York City before enrolling in the Creative Writing Program at Brown University, where she studied with the authors Susan Sontag, Robert Coover, and John Hawkes. After earning her master's degree in 1985, she stayed at Brown for a year as a teaching fellow. [5]

Writing career

Scott began writing her first novel, Fading, My Parmacheene Belle, while at Brown University. [6] It was published in 1987. Writing in The New York Times, Nancy Ramsey called it a "remarkably inventive first novel" that was moving and wise. [7] In a separate review in The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt criticized the novel's plot, but praised the "mad eloquence" of its prose. [8]

In 1988, Scott's second novel, The Closest Possible Union, was published. Narrated by a teenaged boy, it tells the story of the violent voyage of a slave ship. Publishers Weekly declared that the "Kafkaesque" story "demonstrates conclusively that modern literature has a major new voice". [9] However, the author Robert Houston found the novel disappointing, writing in The New York Times that it suffered from a disconnect between its language and its material. [10]

Scott's third novel, Arrogance, appeared in 1990 to mixed reviews. A fragmented, fictional account inspired by the life of Austrian artist Egon Schiele, it was criticized in Publishers Weekly as reading like "an innovative treatise". [11] Writing in The New York Times, the author Scott Bradfield also classified the work as "more…a treatise than a novel", although he praised its "vivid" use of "sensuous, provocative" material. [12] However, Entertainment Weekly gave the novel an 'A' grade, [13] and, writing in The Washington Post, J. D. McClatchy called it "a convincing portrait of tortured artistic genius and a dazzling literary performance". [14]

In 1994, Scott released a collection of stories, Various Antidotes. This was followed by another novel, The Manikin (1996), a gothic story set in western New York. In the Los Angeles Times, Anna Mundow praised the novel's "feverish, hermetically sealed atmosphere", although she criticized its portrayal of its characters. [15] Calling it "richly atmospheric", Kirkus Reviews declared that the novel "splendidly reinforces Scott's reputation as an original and imaginative writer". [16] In The New York Times, Peter Prescott compared Scott's prose to the Metamorphoses of Ovid. [17] The novel went on to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. [18]

In 2000, Scott published her fifth novel, Make Believe. She then took a sabbatical to live in Florence, Italy, where she conducted research and began work on novels set in Italy. [19] These were Tourmaline (2002) and Liberation (2005). Another collection of short stories, Everybody Loves Somebody, was published in 2006.

Scott's eighth novel, Follow Me, appeared in 2009. Kirkus Reviews praised its "luminous prose" and "mythic" main character, [20] while Publishers Weekly admired its "retelling of the archetypal American journey from a female perspective". [21] It was followed by another novel, De Potter's Grand Tour (2014), which was inspired by the story of Scott's great-grandfather, Armand de Potter, and includes photos and other materials from Scott's family archives. [22] In Library Journal, Neil Hollands called it "a fascinating tale of the dark side of the rags-to-riches story". [23]

Scott's tenth novel, Careers for Women, appeared in 2017. A story collection, Excuse Me While I Disappear, appeared in 2021.

Form

External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg In this video from 2017, Scott reads from her novel, Careers for Women. (3 mins)

Scott has published fiction (both novels and short stories) and nonfiction (essays and book reviews). She is best known for fiction of lyrical prose that explores a wide range of subjects and employs a variety of literary techniques. The scholar Anne-Laure Tissut has characterized Scott's writing as displaying "a fascination for the diversity of the world and an awareness of the wealth of literary devices". [24] Among the devices Scott has employed are magical realism [25] and unreliable narration, [26] and she is noted for her contributions to what the scholar Michael Lackey has called "biofiction", or biographical fiction, a form of literature that "names its protagonist after an actual historical figure" without being bound to the scholarly conventions of history or biography. [27] Scott has done this by crafting fictions centered on historical figures ranging from Antonie van Leeuwenhoek to Egon Schiele to her own ancestors.

Themes

Scott's work is thematically diverse. Some scholarly attention has been paid to the feminist perspective in Scott's novels and their portrayal of women who navigate male-dominated arenas. [28] Critics have also focused on Scott's preoccupation with all facets of creativity, including the psychology of artists, most obviously explored in Arrogance, [14] and the choices made in the process of realizing a personal vision. [26]

Influences

In interviews, Scott has pointed to the influence of William Faulkner, Samuel Beckett, Maureen Howard, and John Hawkes on her work. [6] [4]

Academia

In 1987, the time of her first novel's publication, Scott was an instructor at the University of Rochester. She then joined the faculty, as an assistant professor, at the University of Maryland, College Park, for the 1987-88 academic year. In 1988, she rejoined the faculty of the University of Rochester as an assistant professor in the English department. [29]

In 1999, Scott was appointed the Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester. [29]

As of 2023 Scott is the Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester, and Director, Literary Arts Programs. [30]

Honors

Scott has received numerous honors for her work. Below are honors she has received for both her body of work and individual works.

Honors for body of work

Honors for individual works

In addition, Arrogance and Various Antidotes were both finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; [45] The Manikin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, [18] and Tourmaline was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. [46]

Scott's work has been anthologized in TheBest American Short Stories, [47] The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, [48] and elsewhere. She has been a visiting professor at Princeton University. [29] She has also been an invited speaker at numerous institutions.

Personal life

Scott was married to the poet and scholar James Longenbach until his death in 2022. They have two children. [49]

Selected bibliography

Novels

Story collections

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna Russ</span> American writer and academic (1937–2011)

Joanna Russ was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny. She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire, and the story "When It Changed".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Erdrich</span> Native American author in Minnesota (born 1954)

Karen Louise Erdrich is a Native American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercedes Lackey</span> American writer of fantasy novels

Mercedes Ritchie Lackey is an American writer of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar. Her Valdemar novels include interaction between human and non-human protagonists with many different cultures and social mores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Doerr</span> American author

Anthony Doerr is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni</span> American professor, novelist, and poet (born 1956)

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian-born American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Her short story collection, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award in 1996. Two of her novels, as well as a short story were adapted into films.

Janet Peery is an American short story writer and novelist.

Julie Orringer is an American novelist, short story writer, and professor. She attended Cornell University and the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She was born in Miami, Florida and now lives in Brooklyn with her husband, fellow writer Ryan Harty. She is the author of The Invisible Bridge, a New York Times bestseller, and How to Breathe Underwater, a collection of stories; her novel, The Flight Portfolio, tells the story of Varian Fry, the New York journalist who went to Marseille in 1940 to save writers and artists blacklisted by the Gestapo. The novel inspired the Netflix series Transatlantic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nell Freudenberger</span> American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer

Nell Freudenberger is an American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Merrill</span> American childrens writer

Jean Merrill was an American writer of children's books and editor, known best for The Pushcart War, a novel published in 1964. She died from cancer at her home in Randolph, Vermont, in 2012, aged 89.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Groff</span> American writer

Lauren Groff is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written five novels and two short story collections, including Fates and Furies (2015), Florida (2018), Matrix (2022), and The Vaster Wilds (2023).

Cornelia Nixon is an American novelist, short-story writer, and teacher. She has lived much of her mature life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

NOON is a literary annual magazine founded in 2000 by American author Diane Williams. NOON Inc. launched its 24th edition in March 2023. NOON publishes fiction and occasional essays. It is archived at The Lilly Library along with the personal literary archive of founding editor Diane Williams. The Lilly is the principal rare books, manuscripts, and special collections repository of Indiana University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Idra Novey</span> American novelist, poet, and translator

Idra Novey is an American novelist, poet, and translator. She translates from Portuguese, Spanish, and Persian and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Alice Mattison is an American novelist and short story writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celeste Ng</span> American novelist

Celeste Ng is an American writer and novelist. She has released many short stories that have been published in a variety of literary journals. Ng's first novel, Everything I Never Told You, released on June 26, 2014, won the Amazon Book of the Year award as well as praise from critics. Ng's short story Girls at Play won a Pushcart Prize in 2012, and was a 2015 recipient of an Alex Award. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, was published in 2017. The TV-miniseries based on the book premiered in 2020. Ng received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. Her most recent novel, Our Missing Hearts, was released on October 4, 2022.

Elizabeth Inness-Brown is an American novelist, short story writer, educator, and contributing editor at Boulevard. She is a retired professor of English at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont and lives in South Hero, Vermont—one of three islands comprising Grand Isle County—with her husband and son. Inness-Brown has published a novel, Burning Marguerite, as well as two short story collections, titled Here and Satin Palms. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, North American Review, Boulevard, Glimmer Train, Madcap Review, and various other journals. Inness-Brown received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for Writing in 1983 and has done writing residencies at Yaddo and The Millay Colony for the Arts. In 1982, her short story "Release, Surrender" appeared in Volume VII of the Pushcart Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melissa Broder</span> Poet and writer

Melissa Broder is an American author, essayist and poet. Her work includes the novels The Pisces, Milk Fed, and Death Valley ; the poetry collection Last Sext ; and the essay collection So Sad Today, as well as the Twitter feed also titled So Sad Today, on which the book is based. Broder has written for The New York Times, Elle, Vice, Vogue Italia, and New York magazine‘s The Cut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jasmin Darznik</span> American author

Jasmin Darznik is an Iranian-born American writer. She is the New York Times bestselling author of three books, The Bohemians, Song of a Captive Bird, a novel inspired by the life of Forugh Farrokhzad, Iran's notorious woman poet, and The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life, which became a New York Times bestseller. A New York Times Book Review "Editors' Choice" and a Los Angeles Times bestseller, Song of a Captive Bird was praised by The New York Times as a "complex and beautiful rendering of [a] vanished country and its scattered people; a reminder of the power and purpose of art; and an ode to female creativity under a patriarchy that repeatedly tries to snuff it out." The Bohemians was selected by Oprah Daily as one of the best historical novels of 2021. Darznik's books have been published in seventeen countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Heng</span> Singaporean novelist

Rachel Heng is a Singaporean novelist and the author of The Great Reclamation and literary dystopian novel Suicide Club. Her short fiction has been published in many literary journals including The New Yorker, Glimmer Train, Tin House, and the Minnesota Review. Her fiction has received recognition from the Pushcart Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence, the New American Voices Award, and she has been profiled by the BBC, Electric Literature and other publications. Her second novel, The Great Reclamation, was published by Riverhead Books in March 2023.

Marie-Helene Bertino is an American novelist and short story writer. She is the author of three novels, Beautyland (2024), Parakeet (2020) and 2AM at the Cat's Pajamas (2014), and one short story collection, Safe as Houses (2012). She has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and an O. Henry Prize for her short stories.

References

  1. 1 2 Lackey, Michael, ed. (2020). Conversations with Joanna Scott. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp. vii. ISBN   978-1-4968-2932-0. OCLC   1125129457.
  2. ↑ Lackey, Michael, ed. (2020). Conversations with Joanna Scott. p. 4.
  3. ↑ Lackey, Michael, ed. (2020). Conversations with Joanna Scott. pp. vii–viii.
  4. 1 2 Scott, Joanna (May 1, 2010). "A Conversation with Maureen Howard". Believer Magazine. Archived from the original on May 1, 2021. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  5. ↑ Lackey, Michael, ed. (2020). Conversations with Joanna Scott. pp. viii.
  6. 1 2 Morrow, Bradford. "An Interview with Joanna Scott". www.conjunctions.com. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  7. ↑ Ramsey, Nancy (March 22, 1987). "IN SHORT: FICTION". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  8. ↑ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (March 26, 1987). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  9. ↑ "Fiction Book Review: The Closest Possible Union by Joanna Scott". PublishersWeekly.com. Archived from the original on June 13, 2021. Retrieved June 13, 2021.
  10. ↑ Houston, Robert (August 14, 1988). "MUTINY ON THE MIDDLE PASSAGE". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  11. ↑ "Review of Arrogance by Joanna Scott". www.publishersweekly.com. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  12. ↑ Bradfield, Scott (August 19, 1990). "Onan and Egon". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  13. ↑ Donatich, John (November 22, 1991). "Arrogance". EW.com. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  14. 1 2 McClatchy, J. D. (July 22, 1990). "A TALENT TO DISTURB". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  15. ↑ Mundow, Anna (March 10, 1996). "American Gothic : FICTION : THE MANIKIN, By Joanna Scott". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  16. ↑ Review: THE MANIKIN. Kirkus Reviews. 1995. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  17. ↑ Prescott, Peter (April 14, 1996). "Bleak House". archive.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  18. 1 2 "Joanna Scott". www.pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  19. ↑ "Island of Exile is Island of Dreams for Family in Joanna Scott's New Novel". www.rochester.edu. October 25, 2002. Archived from the original on April 30, 2021. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
  20. ↑ Review: FOLLOW ME. Kirkus Reviews. 2009. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  21. ↑ "Review of Follow Me by Joanna Scott". www.publishersweekly.com. February 16, 2009. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  22. ↑ Vernon, John (September 12, 2014). "Facts, Lies and Artifacts". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  23. ↑ Hollands, Neil (August 1, 2014). "De Potter's Grand Tour". Library Journal. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  24. ↑ Tissut, Anne-Laure (2002). "Wonder-Working "Antidotes": The Storyteller's Paraphernalia". Revue Française d'études Américaines. 94 (4): 85–90. doi:10.3917/rfea.094.0085. ISSN   0397-7870. JSTOR   20874880. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  25. ↑ Cohen, Leah Hager (April 17, 2009). "American Quilt". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  26. 1 2 Eugenides, Jeffrey (October 27, 2002). "The Philosopher's Stone". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  27. ↑ Lackey, Michael, ed. (2020). Conversations with Joanna Scott. pp. ix.
  28. ↑ Ebaugh, Ariel; Norwood, Kimberly (March 12, 2021). "Feminist Biofiction: A Conversation with Joanna Scott". A/B: Auto/Biography Studies. 36 (2): 451–466. doi:10.1080/08989575.2021.1888555. ISSN   0898-9575. S2CID   233642140.
  29. 1 2 3 4 Lackey, Michael (2018). "Joanna Scott". In Parker Anderson, George (ed.). Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twenty-First Century American Novelists. Farmington Hills: Gale. pp. 262–272. ISBN   978-1-4144-6255-4. OCLC   1020567202.
  30. ↑ "Joanna Scott". School of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  31. ↑ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Joanna Scott". Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  32. ↑ "Joanna Scott". www.macfound.org. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  33. ↑ "Joanna Scott". Lannan Foundation. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  34. ↑ "Joanna Scott". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  35. ↑ "Santa Maddalena Foundation | The Fellows". Santa Maddalena Foundation. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  36. ↑ "Trinity's 183rd Commencement". The Trinity Reporter. 40 (1): 2. Fall 2009. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2021– via issuu.com.
  37. ↑ "English professors are Bogliasco Fellows this spring". NewsCenter. March 9, 2017. Archived from the original on June 29, 2020. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  38. ↑ "Newsclips" (PDF). Rochester Review. 51 (2): 35. Winter 1988. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 17, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2021– via www.lib.rochester.edu.
  39. ↑ "Joanna Scott – American Academy of Arts and Letters". Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  40. ↑ "Paris Review - Prizes". The Paris Review. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  41. ↑ Henderson, Bill, ed. (1993). The Pushcart Prize XVIII, 1993-1994: Best of the Small Presses. Wainscott: Pushcart Press. p. 129. ISBN   0-916366-89-8. OCLC   29344167. Archived from the original on March 17, 2022. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  42. ↑ "Joanna Scott Wins English-Speaking Union's Ambassador Book Award". www.rochester.edu. Archived from the original on October 16, 2019. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  43. ↑ "Awards and Praise". www.conjunctions.com. Archived from the original on May 1, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  44. ↑ "2020 Pushcart Prize XLIV | Contents". www.richlandlibrary.com. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  45. ↑ "PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners and finalists - Folgerpedia". folgerpedia.folger.edu. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  46. ↑ "Joanna Scott's New Novel in Running for LA Times Book Award". www.rochester.edu. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  47. ↑ Erdrich, Louise; Kenison, Katrina, eds. (1993). The Best American Short Stories 1993. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 217. ISBN   0-395-63628-0. OCLC   29290355. Archived from the original on March 17, 2022. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  48. ↑ Marcus, Ben, ed. (2004). The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. New York: Anchor Books. p. 266. ISBN   1-4000-3482-5. OCLC   53992927. Archived from the original on March 17, 2022. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  49. ↑ "Writer's Block". Rochester Review. 69 (4). 2007. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021– via www.rochester.edu.

Further reading

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.