R. Eric Thomas | |
|---|---|
 at the 2024 Gaithersburg Book Festival | |
| Born | c. 1982 (age 41–42) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Author, playwright, screenwriter |
| Notable work | Here For It (2020) |
| Website | rericthomas |
R. Eric Thomas is an American author, playwright, television writer and advice columnist. He is best known for his essay collection Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America (2020).
Thomas grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. [1] He attended the Park School of Baltimore, then Columbia University and transferred to University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he studied playwriting. [2]
For four years, Thomas wrote "Eric Reads the News," a popular daily humor column covering pop culture and politics for Elle . [3] He is the long-running host of The Moth in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. [4]
He has written for the television shows Dickinson (Apple TV+) and Better Things (FX).[ citation needed ]
In February 2020, Thomas published the essay collection, Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America. The book was a Today Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick. [5] Here For It was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, named one of the best ten best book of the year by Teen Vogue, and one of the best books of the year by O: The Oprah Magazine . [6]
In October 2020, Thomas and Helena Andrews-Dyer published the book, Reclaiming Her Time: The Power of Maxine Waters, which The Atlantic included in "The 10 Best Political Books of 2020 by Black Women". [7] The Washington Post described the book as, "There’s plenty of funny on these pages. And not just a line here or there; we’re talking curse you for making my face wrinkle this way I am now reaching for the eye cream funny. The writers are unabashed fans, writing for those who share the love and making the case that political biographies shine bright when they have as much panache as their subject." [8]
In May 2022, Thomas published the YA book, Kings of B'more. BuzzFeed described the book as "infused with all the joy of the best teen movie." [9]
Thomas won a 2022 Lambda Literary Award in the "LGBTQ Drama" category for his play, Mrs. Harrison. [10]
In 2023, Thomas published a second collection of personal essays called Congratulations, the Best Is Over! [1]
In 2024, after briefly writing Dear Prudence , Thomas began writing the advice column Asking Eric for Tribune Content Agency; in May of 2024, fellow advice columnist Amy Dickinson announced her retirement and encouraged her readers to begin reading Asking Eric instead. [11]
Thomas is gay and married to David Johnston Norse, a Presbyterian minister. The two were married in 2016. [12]
Thomas is outspoken about his depression and struggles with mental health. He told The Advocate that he spent the two years writing Here For It "deeply, deeply depressed". [13]
Shyam Selvadurai is a Sri Lankan Canadian novelist. He is most noted for his 1994 novel Funny Boy, which won the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
Dorothy Allison is an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focuses on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison has won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
What We Do Is Secret is the second punk novel by Thorn Kief Hillsbery, published by Villard in 2005, with a subsequent e-book edition released in 2007. The novel was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in fiction. Writing for Out, Aaron Hamburger named it one of the top five books of 2005 and "a wild ride of a novel that careens through a fateful evening in L.A.'s punk scene."
The Jewish Book Council, founded in 1944, is an American organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. The goal of the council, as stated on its website, is "to promote the reading, writing and publishing of quality English language books of Jewish content in North America". The council sponsors the National Jewish Book Awards, the JBC Network, JBC Book Clubs, the Visiting Scribe series, and Jewish Book Month. It previously sponsored the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. It publishes an annual literary journal called Paper Brigade.
Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the United States–based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works that celebrate or explore LGBTQ themes. The awards are presented annually for books published in the previous year. The Lambda Literary Foundation states that its mission is "to celebrate LGBT literature and provide resources for writers, readers, booksellers, publishers, and librarians—the whole literary community."
Jon Bonné is an American wine and food writer, and since 2020 the managing editor of Resy. Formerly he was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle starting in 2006, and senior contributing editor for Punch. He has been a wine columnist for msnbc.com and Seattle Magazine, and has written for publications such as Food & Wine, The New York Times, The Art of Eating, Saveur and Decanter.
Kevin Hearne is an American-Canadian fantasy novelist originally hailing from Arizona, now residing in Ontario.
Namwali Serpell is an American and Zambian writer who teaches in the United States. In April 2014, she was named on Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Her short story "The Sack" won the 2015 Caine Prize for African fiction in English. In 2020, Serpell won the Belles-lettres category Grand Prix of Literary Associations 2019 for her debut novel The Old Drift.
Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent, whose work includes fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry. She is the author of many books for children and adults, notably a short story collection entitled Foreign Soil (2014), and her 2016 memoir The Hate Race, which she adapted for a stage production debuting in February 2024. In 2023, Clarke was appointed the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at the University of Melbourne.
Samantha McKiver Irby is an American comedian, essayist, blogger, and television writer. She is the creator and author of the blog bitches gotta eat, where she writes humorous observations about her own life and modern society more broadly. Her books We Are Never Meeting in Real Life and Wow, No Thank You. were both New York Times best-sellers. She is a recipient of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for bisexual nonfiction.
The Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a lesbian-themed book of poetry by a female writer. At the first two Lambda Literary Awards in 1989 and 1990, a single award for LGBT Poetry, irrespective of gender, was presented. Beginning with the 3rd Lambda Literary Awards in 1991, the poetry award was split into two separate awards for Lesbian Poetry and Gay Poetry, which have been presented continuously since then except at the 20th Lambda Literary Awards in 2008, when a merged LGBTQ poetry award was again presented for that year only.
Kristen Arnett is an American fiction author and essayist. Her debut novel, Mostly Dead Things, was a New York Times bestseller.
John Morgan Wilson is an American journalist and author of crime fiction, notably the Benjamin Justice mystery novels. The books feature a reclusive ex-reporter, ruined by a Pulitzer scandal and haunted by personal loss, who operates out of West Hollywood, California, becoming enmeshed in murder investigations in and around Los Angeles.
K-Ming Chang is an American novelist and poet. She is the author of the novel Bestiary (2020). Gods of Want won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. In 2021, Bestiary was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Jenn Shapland is an American writer and archivist. Her essay "Finders, Keepers" won a Pushcart Prize in 2017, and her memoir, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir in 2021.
Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes, often shortened to Vegetable Kingdom, is a 2020 cookbook by Bryant Terry. It received positive reviews and won an NAACP Image Award. Recipes are based on the cuisines of the African diaspora. The book provides a song pairing for each dish.
Candice Iloh is a queer, first-generation Nigerian-American writer, poet, educator and dancer. Their debut novel, Every Body Looking, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and Michael L. Printz Award honor book.
Andrew Joseph White is an American young adult fiction author. He is best known for New York Times bestselling dystopian young adult novel Hell Followed with Us (2022).
Fatima Daas is a French writer. Her debut novel, The Last One, follows the life of a young Muslim woman as she explores her sexuality, religion, and relationships while living in Clichy-sous-Bois, a suburb of Paris.