Gail Caldwell

Last updated

Gail Caldwell (born January 20, 1951) is an American critic and author. She was the chief book critic for The Boston Globe , where she was on staff from 1985 to 2009. Caldwell was the winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. The award was for eight Sunday reviews and two other columns written in 2000. According to the Pulitzer Prize board, those columns were noted for “her insightful observations on contemporary life and literature.”

Caldwell was born and raised in Amarillo, Texas. After graduating from Tascosa High School, she attended Texas Tech University for a while but transferred to University of Texas at Austin and obtained two degrees in American studies. She was an instructor at the University of Texas until 1981. Before joining The Boston Globe, Caldwell taught feature writing at Boston University, worked as the arts editor of the Boston Review and wrote for the publications New England Monthly and Village Voice .

She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and wrote the 2006 memoir, A Strong West Wind : A Memoir and the 2010 Let's Take the Long Way Home , a memoir of her friendship with author Caroline Knapp. [1] Caldwell published a third memoir in 2014, New Life, No Instructions, about her childhood bout with polio. [2] [3] [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Criticism</span> American journalism award

The Pulitzer Prize for Criticism has been presented since 1970 to a newspaper writer in the United States who has demonstrated 'distinguished criticism'. Recipients of the award are chosen by an independent board and officially administered by Columbia University. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Commentary</span> American journalism award

The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is an award administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism "for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool". It is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism. It has been presented since 1970. Finalists have been announced from 1980, ordinarily with two others beside the winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Molly Ivins</span> American newspaper columnist

Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins was an American newspaper columnist, author, political commentator, and humorist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Quindlen</span> American author and journalist

Anna Marie Quindlen is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Goodman</span> American journalist and writer

Ellen Goodman is an American journalist and syndicated columnist. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980. She is also a speaker and commentator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Connie Schultz</span> American journalist

Connie Schultz is an American writer and journalist. Schultz is a columnist for USA Today. She wrote for Cleveland's daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer, from 1993 to 2011, winning the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for "her pungent columns that provided a voice for the underdog and underprivileged". Schultz is married to Sherrod Brown, Democratic U.S. Senator from Ohio, and resigned from the paper to avoid a conflict of interest. She teaches journalism at Kent State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Patchett</span> American novelist and memoirist (born 1963)

Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), and The Dutch House (2019). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Junot Díaz</span> Dominican-American writer, academic, and editor

Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Smith (poet)</span> American poet (born 1955)

Patricia Smith is an American poet, spoken-word performer, playwright, author, writing teacher, and former journalist. She has published poems in literary magazines and journals including TriQuarterly, Poetry, The Paris Review, Tin House, and in anthologies including American Voices and The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry. She is on the faculties of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and the Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Sierra Nevada University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wesley Morris</span> American journalist

Wesley Morris is an American film critic and podcast host. He is currently critic-at-large for The New York Times, as well as co-host, with Jenna Wortham, of the New York Times podcast Still Processing. Previously, Morris wrote for The Boston Globe, then Grantland. He won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for his work with The Globe and the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for his New York Times coverage of race relations in the United States, making Morris the only writer to have won the Criticism prize more than once.

Anne Elise Kornblut is a Pulitzer Prize–winning American journalist who is currently serving as Vice President of Global Curation at Facebook. Kornblut has previously served as the deputy national editor of The Washington Post, overseeing national politics, national security and health/science/environmental coverage.

William Alfred Henry III (1950–1994) was an American cultural critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucinda Franks</span> American journalist (1946–2021)

Lucinda Laura Franks was an American journalist, novelist, and memoirist. Franks won a Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for her reporting on the life of Diana Oughton, a member of Weather Underground. With that award she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer for National Reporting, and the youngest person ever to win any Pulitzer. She published four books, including two memoirs, and worked as a staff writer at The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Richard Gray Eder was an American film reviewer and a drama critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debby Applegate</span> American historian and biographer

Debby Applegate is an American historian and biographer. She is the author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age and The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathryn Schulz</span> American journalist and author

Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article on the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.

<i>Lets Take the Long Way Home</i>

Let's Take the Long Way Home: a memoir of friendship is a memoir by Gail Caldwell (1951–). The memoir describes the friendship between the author and fellow writer Caroline Knapp who died at the age of 42 in 2002, and it takes place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Let's Take the Long Way Home was published in 2010. The title refers to their habit of taking the long way home so that they could continue their conversations.

William Anthony Caldwell was an American journalist and columnist who spent 48 years at The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey. He won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inga Saffron</span> American journalist and architecture critic

Inga Saffron is an American journalist and architecture critic. She won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism while writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Bauman</span> American author

Jeff Bauman is an American author. He lost both of his legs during the Boston Marathon Bombing attack in 2013 and was the subject of a famous photograph taken in the aftermath of the bombing. The film Stronger is based on a memoir of the same name he co-wrote, with actor Jake Gyllenhaal portraying Bauman.

References

  1. Caldwell, Gail (2006). A strong west wind: a memoir (first ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN   1-4000-6248-9. OCLC   59756036.
  2. Caldwell, Gail (3 February 2015). New life, no instructions: a memoir (Random House trade paperback ed.). New York. ISBN   978-0-8129-8187-2. OCLC   889996725.
  3. "Restarting Life Out From Under Polio's Shadow". Here and Now. April 30, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  4. Abbott, Alysia (April 5, 2014). "'New Life, No Instructions' by Gail Caldwell". Boston Globe. Retrieved April 29, 2015.