Here are 7 Author Shoutouts for this week. Find your favorite author or discover an author whose work you need to read next.
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This Week’s Author Shoutouts:
Colson Whitehead
An Author Shoutout to Colson Whitehead is one of the most acclaimed and innovative American novelists of our time, celebrated for his powerful works that seamlessly blend history and speculative fiction to explore complex issues of race and justice. Whitehead made literary history by becoming the first writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for consecutive books. He earned this unparalleled distinction for the haunting and brilliant The Underground Railroad (2017), which reimagines the historical escape route as a literal subterranean train, and for The Nickel Boys (2020), a devastating historical novel based on a brutal Jim Crow-era reform school.
With a background that includes graduating from Harvard University and working at The Village Voice, Whitehead’s writing is both intellectually rigorous and incredibly engaging. He is a versatile genre-bender, having written everything from his debut, the speculative novel The Intuitionist, to a post-apocalyptic zombie tale, Zone One, and a pair of crime thrillers, Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto.
His early love for comics and science fiction laid the groundwork for his unique style, proving that genre conventions are merely a starting point for his exploration of the American experience. A recipient of the MacArthur Genius Fellowship, Colson Whitehead continues to challenge readers with his honesty, wit, and boundless imagination.
Helen Garner
Helen Garner, born in Geelong, Australia, deserves an Author Shoutout. Garner is a multi-talented individual, excelling in the fields of novel writing, short-story crafting, screenwriting, and journalism. Notable fictional works by Garner include Monkey Grip, Cosmo Cosmolino, The Spare Room, and The Children’s Bach. Her exceptional talent has earned her multiple prestigious awards, such as the Melbourne Prize for Literature and a Walkley Award for journalism in 1993.
Garner’s professional journey encompasses the creation of both fiction and non-fiction works. Additionally, she has actively contributed to the realms of film and theater, consistently receiving accolades for her exceptional talent. Notably, her remarkable achievements include being honored with the prestigious Walkley Award for her compelling report in Time magazine back in 1993.
Kazuo Ishiguro
An Author Shoutout to Kazuo Ishiguro who was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and later moved to the UK. He has written eight novels, including the acclaimed Remains of the Day, which won the Nobel and Booker prizes in 1989 and was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film. Another notable work by Ishiguro is Never Let Me Go, considered by many to be his finest, which received a Booker nomination and was made into a major motion picture. His contributions to literature have been recognized by the British, French, and Japanese governments, and in 2018 he was awarded the title of Knight Bachelor.
Having authored five screenplays, he recently undertook the task of adapting the script for Bill Nighy’s film, Living. Presently, he resides in London.
Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton, born in Newton, Massachusetts, deserves an Author Shoutout. She was an acclaimed American poet renowned for her deeply personal and confessional style of verse. In 1967, she achieved the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for her work Live or Die. Sexton fearlessly explored themes of suicidal tendencies, depression, and openly shared intimate aspects of her private life. Collaborating with Maxine Kumin, she also authored four children’s books. Sexton’s journey began as a model, then transitioned into teaching and lecturing on writing, ultimately reaching the position of a professor of creative writing.
On October 4, 1974, she came home, put on her mother’s old fur coat, took off her rings, poured a glass of vodka, locked herself in the garage, and started her car’s engine, dying from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Robert Jackson Bennett
Robert Jackson Bennett is an American author of fantasy and science fiction celebrated for his imaginative worlds and high-concept plots. Bennett’s most famous work is The Founders Trilogy, a unique blend of heist and epic fantasy. The series introduces scriving, a brilliant magic system that’s essentially magical programming, where objects are tricked into believing they are something else.
Before this trilogy, Bennett garnered acclaim for his Divine Cities Trilogy, an urban fantasy that examines the complex aftermath of colonization and the death of gods. His ability to seamlessly jump between horror, sci-fi, and fantasy stems from a lifetime of wide-ranging interests, including a love for intricate systems inspired by role-playing games.
A meticulous plotter, Bennett spends months developing his worlds to ensure the rules are ironclad before he ever starts drafting. By focusing on characters from marginalized groups and using fantasy to dissect real-world power dynamics, Robert Jackson Bennett has cemented his place as one of speculative fiction’s most innovative and thoughtful voices.
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, the celebrated author born in Indianapolis, Indiana, deserves an Author Shoutout. Renowned for his sharp wit and dry humor, as well as his iconic literary works like Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut’s life was marked by tragedy. While on leave from the Army on Mother’s Day in 1944, he received the devastating news of his mother’s suicide. Furthermore, Vonnegut himself experienced the horrors of war as a German prisoner of war during WWII, miraculously surviving the bombing of Dresden.
After his sister passed away from cancer shortly after her husband died in a train accident, he stepped up and adopted her four children. Throughout his entire life, he remained steadfast in his beliefs as a humanist. At the age of 82, he sadly passed away in New York due to head injuries sustained from a fall at his residence.
Janette Turner Hospital
An Author Shoutout to Janette Turner Hospital, originally from Melbourne, Australia, who is a highly acclaimed Australian author known for works such as Oyster, The Last Magician, and Orpheus Lost. Throughout her adult life, she has resided primarily in various locations in Canada and the United States, including Boston (Massachusetts), Kingston (Ontario), and Columbia (South Carolina).
In 1965, she completed her BA at the University of Queensland and Kelvin Grove Teachers College. Furthermore, she obtained an MA in 1973 from Queen’s University in Canada.
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