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Michael Cunningham | |
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Born | Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. | November 6, 1952
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Education | Stanford University (BA) University of Iowa (MFA) |
Notable work | The Hours |
Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for Fiction PEN/Faulkner Award |
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Michael Cunningham (born November 6, 1952) [1] is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel The Hours , which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction [2] and the PEN/Faulkner Award [3] in 1999. Cunningham is Professor in the Practice of Creative Writing at Yale University. [4]
Cunningham was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in La Cañada Flintridge, California. [5] [6] He studied English literature at Stanford University, where he earned his degree. Later, at the University of Iowa, he received a Michener Fellowship and was awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. While studying at Iowa, he had short stories published in the Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review . His short story "White Angel" was later used as a chapter in his novel A Home at the End of the World. It was included in "The Best American Short Stories, 1989", published by Houghton Mifflin.
In 1988, Cunningham received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship [7] and in 1993 a Guggenheim Fellowship. [8] In 1995 he was awarded a Whiting Award. [9] Cunningham has taught at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and in the creative writing M.F.A. program at Brooklyn College.
The Hours established Cunningham as a major force in the American writing sphere, and his 2010 novel, By Nightfall , was also well received by U.S. critics. [10] Cunningham edited a book of poetry and prose by Walt Whitman, [11] Laws for Creations, and co-wrote, with Susan Minot, a screenplay adapted from Minot's novel Evening. He was a producer for the 2007 film Evening , starring Glenn Close, Toni Collette, and Meryl Streep.
In November 2010, Cunningham judged one of NPR's "Three Minute Fiction" contests. [12]
In April 2018, it was announced that Cunningham would serve as consulting producer for a revival of the Tales of the City miniseries, which is based on Armistead Maupin's book series of the same name. [13] The miniseries premiered on June 7, 2019.
Although Cunningham is gay, and married to psychoanalyst Ken Corbett, [14] he dislikes being referred to as a gay writer, according to a PlanetOut article. [15] While he often writes about gay people, he does not "want the gay aspects of [his] books to be perceived as their single, primary characteristic." [16] Cunningham lives in Brooklyn, New York and works in Manhattan. [17]
Collections:
Uncollected short stories:
For The Hours, Cunningham was awarded the:
In 1995, Cunningham received a Whiting Award.
In 2011, Cunningham won the Fernanda Pivano Award for American Literature in Italy. [19]
In 2024, Cunningham won the Premio Gregor von Rezzori for Day. [20]