Mitch Berman | |
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 Mitch Berman | |
| Born | May 29, 1956 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley Columbia University |
| Website | |
| mitchberman | |
Mitch Berman (born May 29, 1956) is an American fiction writer known for his imaginative range, exploration of characters beyond the margins of society, lush prose style and dark humor.
Berman's novel Time Capsule, the tale of a jazz saxophonist's journey across a post-apocalyptic America, was nominated by its publisher, Putnam, for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and the Pulitzer Prize. [1] A New York Times "New and Noteworthy Book", [2] the novel evoked comparisons with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn , [3] and the musicality of its author's style was noted by many critics, including Fanny Howe in The New York Times , [4] the San Diego Union ("a pied piper laying down a hypnotic line of patter"), the San Francisco Chronicle ("reminiscent of a Thelonius Monk solo"), and Kurt Vonnegut ("high-intensity jazz for the very sharpest of readers"). Carolyn See, in the Los Angeles Times , hailed "a brave and heartening book" and the author's "absolutely perfect ear for dialogue." [5] The novel's editor was the late Faith Sale, who also worked with Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, Amy Tan and Kazuo Ishiguro. [6]
Berman's stories span an eclectic array of characters, settings and circumstances:
Berman's stories, nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes, have been named to two special mentions in the Pushcart Prizes [7] and a one in The Best American Short Stories. [8] Major anthologies in which his work is represented include Pow Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, [9] Voices of the Xiled: A Generation Speaks for Itself, [10] The Male Body, [11] and Sudden Fiction (Continued). [12]
Berman has also written nonfiction on a wide variety of subjects. With Susanne Lee, he went to Beijing to cover the violent crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 for the Village Voice . His Los Angeles Times Magazine profile of the world chess champions, Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, received special mention in the first Best American Sports Writing, edited by David Halberstam and Glenn Stout. [13] With Susanne Lee, he served as co-freelance editor of Children of the Dragon: The Story of Tiananmen Square (essays and photographs from the student movement), reviewed several books on the crackdown, among them one by Harrison Salisbury for The Nation, and, for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, profiled jazz drummer Max Roach. He has also reviewed the works of science fiction authors Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury for the Los Angeles Times Book Review.
Born in Los Angeles and raised in Southern California and Eugene, Oregon, Berman graduated in 1979 from the University of California at Berkeley. Encouraged by Ishmael Reed and Russell Banks, he graduated from the MFA Program in Writing at Columbia University in 1991. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin and SUNY Purchase, where he served as the first holder of the Royal and Shirley Durst Chair in Literature. [14]
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, and politician. He was the 12th World Chess Champion from 1975 to 1985, a three-time FIDE World Champion, twice World Chess champion as a member of the USSR team, and a six-time winner of Chess Olympiads as a member of the USSR team. The International Association of Chess Press awarded him nine Chess Oscars.
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion (1985–2000), political activist and writer. His peak FIDE chess rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by Magnus Carlsen in 2013. From 1984 until his retirement from regular competitive chess in 2005, Kasparov was ranked world no. 1 for a record 255 months overall. Kasparov also holds records for the most consecutive professional tournament victories (15) and Chess Oscars (11).
Jan Timman is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as "The Best of the West". He has won the Dutch Chess Championship nine times and has been a Candidate for the World Chess Championship several times. He lost the title match of the 1993 FIDE World Championship against Anatoly Karpov.
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Josip Novakovich is a Croatian Canadian writer.
Don Lee is an American novelist, fiction writer, literary journal editor, and creative writing professor.
Katharine Weber is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. She has taught fiction and nonfiction writing at Yale University, Goucher College, the Paris Writers Workshop and elsewhere. She held the Visiting Richard L. Thomas Chair in Creative Writing at Kenyon College from 2012 to 2019.
Joanna Scott 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.
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Harvard Review is a biannual literary journal published by Houghton Library at Harvard University.
My Great Predecessors is a series of chess books written by former World Champion Garry Kasparov et al. The five volumes in the My Great Predecessors series are about the players who preceded Kasparov in being official World Champions. The series of books continued with the Modern Chess volumes that covers developments in the 1970s and Kasparov's games with Anatoly Karpov. The series is being extended with three volumes of Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov, covering his other games. The books contain historical details, but for the most part the books are made up of annotated games.
Karen E. Bender is an American novelist and short story writer.
NOON is a literary annual founded in 2000 by American author Diane Williams. NOON Inc. launched its 24th edition in March 2023. NOON 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.
Lou Mathews is an American writer, novelist, journalist, playwright and short story writer based in Los Angeles. He was born in Glendale, California, earned his B.A. degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1973, and his M.F.A. from Vermont College in 1987. His novel, L.A. Breakdown (1999), was noted by the Los Angeles Times as a "Best Book" of 1999. L.A. Breakdown is a novel describing the street racing scene in Los Angeles circa 1967. His novel Shaky Town was published in 2021.
American Short Fiction is a nationally circulated literary magazine founded in 1991 and based in Austin, Texas. Issued triannually, American Short Fiction publishes short fiction, novel excerpts, an occasional novella, and strives to publish work by both established and emerging contemporary authors. The magazine seeks out stories "that dive into the wreck, that stretch the reader between recognition and surprise, that conjure a particular world with delicate expertise—stories that take a different way home."
Richard Burgin was an American fiction writer, editor, composer, critic, and academic. He published nineteen books, and from 1996 through 2013 was a professor of Communications and English at Saint Louis University. He was also the founder and publisher of the internationally distributed award-winning literary magazine Boulevard.
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