Scott Heim

Last updated
Scott Heim
Scott Heim.jpg
Scott Heim in April of 2016
Born (1966-09-26) September 26, 1966 (age 57)
Hutchinson, Kansas, U.S.
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • poet
  • editor
NationalityAmerican
Period1995–present
GenreLiterary Fiction
Subject memory, sex, childhood trauma
Notable worksMysterious Skin (1995)
We Disappear (2008)
Notable awardsLambda Literary Award for Fiction, 2009
Partner Michael Lowenthal

Scott Heim (born September 26, 1966) is an American novelist from Hutchinson, Kansas, currently living in Massachusetts. Heim's first novel, Mysterious Skin, was published in 1995. [1]

Contents

Biography

Scott Heim was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, [2] in 1966. He attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, earning a B.A. in English and Art History in 1989 and an M.A. in English Literature in 1991.[ citation needed ] He attended the M.F.A. program in Writing at Columbia University, where he wrote stories that evolved into his first novel, Mysterious Skin. [3] HarperCollins published that book in 1996, and Heim followed it with another novel, In Awe, about a makeshift family of Kansas misfits, in 1997. Kirkus Reviews called it a "disappointing follow-up to Mysterious Skin." In Awe, however, won the 1998 Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Fiction. [4]

In 2008, his novel We Disappear was published. Publishers Weekly described it as "Taut and beautifully clear, the writing at times recalls that of Paul Auster," but added "the plot ends in a place less interesting than where it began." [5]

In 2012, Heim began publishing a series of music-related nonfiction collections called "The First Time I Heard" series, for which he serves as editor. In these books, musicians and writers tell their stories of when they first heard an iconic band or artist. [6]

Heim won fellowships to the London Arts Board as their International Writer-in-Residence, and to the Sundance Screenwriters' Lab for his adaptation of Mysterious Skin. [7] He is also the author of a book of poems, Saved From Drowning (1993).

Mysterious Skin was adapted for the stage by playwright Prince Gomolvilas, premiering in San Francisco. It was subsequently adapted into a film of the same name by director Gregg Araki and Antidote Films. The movie starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Elisabeth Shue, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Mary Lynn Rajskub.

After living 11 years in New York, [8] Heim relocated to Boston in 2002 with his boyfriend, writer Michael Lowenthal. [9]

Works

Novels

Poetry

Editor

Contributor

Filmography

Related Research Articles

John Preston was an American author of gay erotica and an editor of gay nonfiction anthologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Chabon</span> American author and Pulitzer Prize winner (born 1963)

Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.

Christopher Bram is an American author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregg Araki</span> American film director

Gregg Araki is an American filmmaker. He is noted for his heavy involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement. His film Kaboom (2010) was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Allison</span> American writer (born 1949)

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.

<i>Mysterious Skin</i> 2004 film by Gregg Araki

Mysterious Skin is a 2004 coming-of-age drama film written, produced, and directed by Gregg Araki, adapted from Scott Heim's 1995 novel of the same name. The film tells the story of two pre-adolescent boys who both experienced sexual abuse as children, and how it affects their lives in different ways into their young adulthood. One boy becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous sex worker, while the other retreats into a reclusive fantasy of alien abduction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Joy Fowler</span> American writer

Karen Joy Fowler is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the nineteenth century, the lives of women, and social alienation.

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

Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber, an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer, born on the island of Aruba. Most of his adult life has been spent in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a small town in Florida. He was a member of The Violet Quill with Christopher Cox, a gay writer's group that met in 1980 and 1981 and also included Robert Ferro, Edmund White and Felice Picano. Following the critical and financial success of his first novel Dancer from the Dance in 1978, he became a prominent author of post-Stonewall gay literature. Historically protective of his privacy, the author continues to use the pseudonym Andrew Holleran as a writer and public speaker.

Katherine V. Forrest is a Canadian-born American writer, best known for her novels about lesbian police detective Kate Delafield. Her books have won and been finalists for Lambda Literary Award twelve times, as well as other awards. She has been referred to by some "a founding mother of lesbian fiction writing."

Philip Gambone is an American writer who has published both fiction and non-fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Tuttle</span> American-British writer

Lisa Gracia Tuttle is an American-born science fiction, fantasy, and horror author. She has published more than a dozen novels, seven short story collections, and several non-fiction titles, including a reference book on feminism, Encyclopedia of Feminism (1986). She has also edited several anthologies and reviewed books for various publications. She has been living in the United Kingdom since 1981.

Robert Charles "Rob" Byrnes, Jr. is a 21st-century gay American, novelist and blogger, whose fiction focuses primarily on gay men and other sexual minorities. He serves on the Steering Committee for The Publishing Triangle, and was also a member of the Executive Council of the International Association of Crime Writers/North American Branch from 2011 to 2015.

Michael Lowenthal, an American fiction writer, is the author of four novels, most recently The Paternity Test. Currently an instructor of creative writing at Lesley University, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Wesleyan writers' conferences, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers. His short stories have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The Kenyon Review, Tin House, and Esquire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earl Kemp</span> American publisher (1929–2020)

Earl Kemp was an American publisher, science fiction editor, critic, and fan who won a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine in 1961 for Who Killed Science Fiction, a collection of questions and answers with top writers in the field. Kemp also helped found Advent:Publishers, a small publishing house focused on science fiction criticism, history, and bibliography, and served as chairman of the 20th World Science Fiction Convention. During the 1960s and '70s, Kemp was also involved in publishing a number of erotic paperbacks, including an illustrated edition of the Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. This publication led to Kemp being sentenced to one year in prison for "conspiracy to mail obscene material," but he served only the federal minimum of three months and one day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Grier</span> American writer and publisher (1933-2011)

Barbara Grier was an American writer and publisher. She is credited for having built the lesbian book industry. After editing The Ladder magazine, published by the lesbian civil rights group Daughters of Bilitis, she co-founded a lesbian book-publishing company Naiad Press, which achieved publicity and became the world's largest publisher of lesbian books. She built a major collection of lesbian literature, catalogued with detailed indexing of topics.

Robin Wayne Bailey is an American writer of speculative fiction, both fantasy and science fiction. He is a founder of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (1996) and a past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. M. Homes</span> American writer (born 1961)

Amy M. Homes is an American writer best known for her controversial novels and unusual short stories, which feature extreme situations and characters. Notably, her novel The End of Alice (1996) is about a convicted child molester and murderer.

<i>The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered</i> 2010 book

The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered, edited by Tom Cardamone, includes appreciations by 28 contemporary writers of significant gay novels and short story collections now out of print. The Lost Library includes an essay on reprints of gay literature by Philip Clark. Published in March 2010, it features a cover illustration by Mel Odom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Torres</span> American novelist (born 1980)

Justin Torres is an American novelist and an Associate Professor of English at University of California, Los Angeles. He won the First Novelist Award for his semi-autobiographical debut novel We the Animals (2011), which was also a Publishing Triangle Award finalist and a NAACP Image Award nominee. The novel has been adapted into a film of the same title and was awarded the Next Innovator Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Torres' second novel, Blackouts, won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction.

Bernard G. Marshall was an American writer. His historical novel Cedric the Forester was one runner-up for the inaugural Newbery Medal in 1922.

References

  1. Gambone, Philip; Giard, Robert (1999). Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Fiction Writers. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 301. ISBN   9780299161347 . Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  2. "Scott Heim back in Kansas with 'We Disappear'". 27 March 2008.
  3. "'Mysterious Skin': Film inspired by former KU student's book debuts on screen in Lawrence". 10 October 2005.
  4. "Firecracker Alternative Book Awards". ReadersRead.com. Archived from the original on Mar 4, 2009.
  5. "Fiction Book Review: We Disappear by Scott Heim, Author. Harper Perennial $13.95 (293p) ISBN 978-0-06-146897-1".
  6. "Reader Meet Author: Personal Advice from Author Scott Heim". 28 May 2012.
  7. "Sundance Institute".
  8. "LGBT History Month: Scott Heim - English | Colorado State University". 16 October 2017.
  9. "Scott Heim back in Kansas with 'We Disappear'". 27 March 2008.