William McKeen

Last updated

William McKeen is an American author and educator. He is professor and former chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University. [1]

Contents

Biography

McKeen was born in Indianapolis September 16, 1954, he was raised in England, Germany, Nebraska, Florida and Texas. His father was an Air Force flight surgeon who retired to private practice in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1968.

McKeen has seven children: Sarah, Graham and Mary (from his first marriage),and Savannah, Jackson, Travis and Charley (from his second marriage).

Published work

McKeen has written and/or edited a dozen books, including Outlaw Journalist (W.W. Norton, 2008), his critically acclaimed biography of writer Hunter S. Thompson.

McKeen's most recent book is Everybody Had An Ocean (Chicago Review Press, 2017), a non-fiction narrative about music and mayhem in Los Angeles in the Sixties. Other recent books include Too Old to Die Young (Dredger's Lane, 2015), a collection of essays and stories; Homegrown in Florida (University Press of Florida, 2012), a book of stories about childhood in Florida; and Mile Marker Zero (Crown Books, 2011), a non-fiction narrative about the writers, artists, musicians and actors in Key West in the Seventies.

Critical reception

His earlier books include Highway 61 (W.W. Norton, 2003), Rock and Roll is Here to Stay (W.W. Norton, 2000), Literary Journalism (Wadsworth, 2000), Tom Wolfe (Twayne, 1995) and several earlier books on popular culture. His writing has appeared in Maxim , American History, Holiday , The Saturday Evening Post and many other newspapers and magazines. Before beginning his academic career, he was a newspaper reporter and copy editor in Indiana, Florida and Oklahoma. He was associate editor of The American Spectator and The Saturday Evening Post, where he helped compile The American Story (Curtis, 1975).

Writer Tom Wolfe called Mile Marker Zero "a tall but telescopic-sight-true tale of Hunter Thompson, Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and a large cavorting cast running around with sand in their shoes at 'ground zero for lust and greed and most of the other deadly sins,' Key West." Historian Douglas Brinkley said it was "a wonderful zinger of a book. Every page sings a story worth a Jimmy Buffett song." Wayne Curtis, writing in the Wall Street Journal, called the book "a romp" and said McKeen had committed "deft storytelling." [2] The book earned a Florida Book Award Gold Medal in 2012. [3]

Christopher Hitchens, writing in the Sunday Times of London, called Outlaw Journalist "admirable and haunting." In the Washington Post, book editor Jonathan Yardley wrote that McKeen "gets it all in: the boozing and drugging, the violence, but also the intelligence, the loyalty, the inherent decency."

Education and academic career

McKeen earned his bachelor's degree in history and his master's in journalism, both from Indiana University. [1] He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. [1]

McKeen teaches courses on journalism history, literary journalism and rock n' roll and American culture. [1] He taught at Western Kentucky University and the University of Oklahoma before joining the University of Florida faculty in 1986. He taught there until 2010, and chaired the journalism department from 1998 until 2010, before moving to a similar position at Boston University. He was also named to Hunter S. Thompson's Honor Roll in 2003 and cited as one of America's Eight Most-Fun Professors by Playboy magazine in 1993. [4] For the 2016–2017 academic year, he served as associate dean of the College of Communication.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gonzo journalism</span> Style of journalism

Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article about the Kentucky Derby by Hunter S. Thompson, who popularized the style. It is an energetic first-person participatory writing style in which the author is a protagonist, and it draws its power from a combination of social critique and self-satire. It has since been applied to other subjective artistic endeavors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunter S. Thompson</span> American journalist and author (1937–2005)

Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John McPhee</span> American writer (born 1931)

John Angus McPhee is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth occasion in 1999 for Annals of the Former World. In 2008, he received the George Polk Career Award for his "indelible mark on American journalism during his nearly half-century career". Since 1974, McPhee has been the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Wolfe</span> American author and journalist (1930–2018)

Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques. Much of Wolfe's work was satirical and centred on the counterculture of the 1960s and issues related to class, social status, and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osceola</span> Seminole leader

Osceola, named Billy Powell at birth in Alabama, became an influential leader of the Seminole people in Florida. His mother was Muscogee, and his great-grandfather was a Scotsman, James McQueen. He was reared by his mother in the Creek (Muscogee) tradition. When he was a child, they migrated to Florida with other Red Stick refugees, led by a relative, Peter McQueen, after their group's defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars. There they became part of what was known as the Seminole people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Writers' Project</span> 1935–1945 U.S. government New Deal program

The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers and to develop a history and overview of the United States, by state, cities and other jurisdictions. It was launched in 1935 during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It was one of a group of New Deal arts programs known collectively as Federal Project Number One or Federal One.

New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction. Using extensive imagery, reporters interpolate subjective language within facts whilst immersing themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them. In traditional journalism, the journalist is "invisible"; facts are meant to be reported objectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Almond</span> American short-story writer, essayist, and author

Steve Almond is an American short-story writer, essayist and author of ten books, three of which are self-published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony DeCurtis</span> American author and music critic

Anthony DeCurtis is an American author and music critic, who has written for Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Relix and many other publications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Roth</span> American cartoonist (born 1929)

Arnold Roth is an American cartoonist and illustrator for advertisements, album covers, books, magazines, and newspapers. Novelist John Updike wrote, "All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so."

<i>The New Journalism</i> Book by Tom Wolfe

The New Journalism is a 1973 anthology of journalism edited by Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson. The book is both a manifesto for a new type of journalism by Wolfe, and a collection of examples of New Journalism by American writers, covering a variety of subjects from the frivolous to the deadly serious. The pieces are notable because they do not conform to the standard dispassionate and even-handed model of journalism. Rather they incorporate literary devices usually only found in fictional works.

<i>The Curse of Lono</i> 1983 book by Hunter S. Thompson

The Curse of Lono is a book by Hunter S. Thompson describing his experiences in Hawaii in 1980. Originally published in 1983, the book was only in print for a short while. In 2005 it was re-released as a limited edition. Only 1000 copies were produced, each one being signed by the author and artist Ralph Steadman.The book is now available as a smaller hardcover edition.

<i>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</i> 1971 novel by Hunter S. Thompson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a 1971 novel in the gonzo journalism style by Hunter S. Thompson. The book is a roman à clef, rooted in autobiographical incidents. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Doctor Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze, all the while ruminating on the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement. The work is Thompson's most famous book and is noted for its lurid descriptions of illicit drug use and its early retrospective on the culture of the 1960s. Thompson's highly subjective blend of fact and fiction, which it popularized, became known as gonzo journalism. Illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the novel first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 before being published in book form in 1972. It was later adapted into a film of the same title in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, who portrayed Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas B. Edsall</span> American journalist and academic

Thomas Byrne Edsall is an American journalist and academic. He is best known for his weekly opinion column for The New York Times, Previously, he worked as a reporter for The Providence Journal and for The Baltimore Sun, and as a correspondent for The New Republic. In addition, he spent 25 years covering national politics for the Washington Post. He held the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Chair at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism until 2014.

Paul Mariani is an American poet and is University Professor Emeritus at Boston College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science Writing Award</span> Award for excellence in writing about science

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) instituted their Science Writing Award to "promote effective science communication in print and broadcast media in order to improve the general public's appreciation of physics, astronomy, and allied science fields." The winner receives $3000, and an engraved Windsor chair. The award is given in three broad categories: 1) science writing, 2) work intended for children, and 3) work done in new media. The AIP stopped issuing awards to three categories: 1) work by a professional journalist 2) work by a scientist, and 3) broadcast media

William Leon McAuliffe was an American Western swing guitarist who was a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys during the 1930s. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of that band, and was a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Whitehead</span> American poet

Ron Whitehead is an American poet, author and activist. Whitehead was born on a farm in Kentucky, but traveled to the University of Louisville and Oxford University to pursue his academic interests.

The Florida Book Awards are a set of annual statewide literary awards that recognize Floridian authors and books about Florida published in the previous year. Established in 2006, the awards are administered by the Florida State University Libraries, with co-sponsors including the Florida Humanities Council, Florida Center for the Book, the State Library and Archives of Florida, and the Florida Historical Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Greenberg (historian)</span> US historian

David Greenberg is a historian and professor of US history as well as of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, New Jersey, United States.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "William McKeen". Boston University College of Communication. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  2. Curtis, Wayne. "Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved October 8, 2011.
  3. "McKeen wins Florida Book Awards medal for 'Mile Marker Zero' - College of Communication". www.bu.edu.
  4. "Campus Bash," Playboy' ', April 1993