John Gregory Brown

P.O. Box BB
Sweet Briar, Virginia 24595
434-381-6434
brown@sbc.edu

EDUCATION

Johns Hopkins University, M.A. in The Writing Seminars, 1988

Louisiana State University, M.A. in English, Phi Kappa Phi, 1984

Tulane University, B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa, 1982

Sweet Briar College, 1994-Present

Director of Creative Writing and Julia Jackson Nichols Chair in English and Creative Writing

Courses: Fiction Workshop, Advanced Fiction Workshop, Introduction to Creative Writing, Biographical Fiction Workship, Contemporary International Writers, Thought and Expression

Johns Hopkins University, 1993-1994

Instructor in The Writing Seminars

Course: Graduate Fiction Workshop

Goucher College, 1993

Visiting Assistant Professor

Course: Fiction Workshop

Patuxent Publishing Co., 1989-1993

Staff Writer-News Editor for Columbia Flier / Howard County Times

Johns Hopkins University, 1988-1989

Instructor in The Writing Seminars

Course: Rudiments of Fiction

Johns Hopkins University, 1987-1988

Teaching Fellow

Course: Contemporary American Letters

North Carolina State University, 1984-1987

Lecturer in English

Courses: Introduction to Fiction, Composition

Books

Audubon's Watch. Novel. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2001. (Paperback edition: Houghton Mifflin, October 2002.)

The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur. Novel. Houghton Mifflin Co., April, 1996. (British edition: Hodder & Stoughton, July 1996. Paperback edition: Avon Books, March 1997. Large-print edition: Thorndike Press, July 1997).

Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery. Novel. Houghton Mifflin Co., January, 1994. (Large-print edition: Thorndike Press, may 1994. Paperback edition: Avon Books, January 1995. British edition: Hodder & Stoughton, July 1995. Reissued paperback edition: Houghton Mifflin Co., September 2001.).

Degas' House. Short stories. Unpublished. (Honorable Mention: Associated Writing Programs Fiction Contest, 1989).

Short Stories

"Audubon's Watch," Lousianna Cultrual Vistas. New Orleans, LA. Winter 2001-2002.

"Laps," Shenandoah. Spring, 1998.

"The Great Sea," Louisiana Cultural Vistas. New Orleans, LA. Spring, 1996.

"The Fallen Bridge," Louisiana Cultural Vistas. New Orleans, LA. Fall, 1994.

"This Summer," The Sun. Durham, NC. July, 1993.

"The Mower," Village Advocate. Chapel Hill, NC. June 23, 1985. (First Place: 1985 Short Fiction Contest).

Scripts

The Road Home, Episode Five. CBS. 1994.

Book Reviews

"Audubon's Excellent Adventures," Boston Globe. November 28, 2004. Review of Richard Rhodes' John James Audubon: The Making of An American.

"Bird Man of America," Chicago Tribune, May 30, 2004. Review of William Souder's Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of "The Birds of America" and Duff Hart-Davis' Audubon's Elephant: America's Greatest Naturalist and the Making of "The Birds of America".

"Slavery and Survival," Chicago Tribune, January 18, 2004. Review of Edward P. Jones' The Known World.

"Branded," Washington Post, August 17, 2003. Review of Joyce Carol Oates' The Tattooed Girl.

"A Fatal Family Feud Plays Out in the Lousianna Bayous," Chicago Tribune, June 30, 2002. Review of John Biguenet's Oyster.

"A Tale of Love and Intolerance," Chicago Tribune, July 8, 2001. Review of Bart Schneider's Secret Love.

"Seperate and Unequal," Chicago Tribune, February 11, 2001. Review of Rilla Askew's Beluah Land and Kathleen Cambor's In Sunliight, In a Beautiful Garden.

"Simple Truths: A Convincing and CHarming Portrait of a Young Boy's Life," Chicago Tribune, May 28, 2000. Review of Tony Earley's Jim the Boy.

"A Young Girl's Troubled, Twisting Journey to Adulthood," Chicago Tribune,k September 12, 1999. Review of Elizabeth Graver's The Honey Thief.

"A Sheltered Life," Chicago Tribune, January 3, 1999. Review of Eudora Welty: Complete Novels; Eudora Welty: Stories and Essays Memoior; and Ann Waldron's Eudora: A Writer's Life.

"Two Families Search for A Way Out of Despair," Chicago Tribune, August 20, 1998. Review of John Burnham Swartz's Reservation Road.

"Dividing Line," Chicago Tribune, December 14, 1997. Review of David K. Shipler's A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America.

"Exploring Our Paradoxical Need for Separation and Connection," Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1997. Review of J.M. Coetzee's Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life.

"Formula for Success," Chicago Tribune, November 2, 1997. Review of Caleb Carr's The Angel of Darkness.

"An Honest Portrait of the Joys and Pains of Romance," Chicago Tribune, October 12, 1997. Review of Nicholas Delbanco's Old Scores.

"Grand 'Plan,'" Chicago Tribune, September 28, 1997. Review of Lawrence Naumoff's A Plan for Women.

"Yesterday's Adolescent," Chicago Tribune, September 7, 1997. Review of Elizabeth Graver's Unravelling.

"Search for Identity," Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1997. Review of Chris Offutt's The Good Brother.

"Bradford Morrow's Rocky Mountain Gothic Mystery," Chicago Tribune, March 9, 1997. Review of Bradford Morrow's Giovanni's Gift.

"Men Behaving Badly," Chicago Tribune, February 16, 1997. Review of Donald Antrim's The Hundred Brothers and Stephen Dixon's Gould.

"Melancholy Magic," Chicago Tribune, December 14, 1996. Review of Philip Graham's Interior Design.

"Race and Transformation," Chicago Tribune. October 27, 1996. Review of Osha Gray Davidson's The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South and Jane Lazaar's Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons.

"Taking the Measure of His Soul," Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1996. Review of Albert Murray's The Seven-League Boots.

"An Unmetaphoric Illness," Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1995. Review of Reynolds Price's The Promise of Rest.

Non-Fiction

"Other Bodies, Ourselves: The Mask of Fiction," Essay in Creating Fiction, Story Press, 1999. Edited by Julie Checkoway.

"Master of the Contradiction," Chicago Tribune, Sunday October 25, 1998. Essay on Portugese Nobel Laureate José Saramago.

"In the art of fiction, it's a challenge to make reality ring true," The Boston Globe, July 13, 1997. Essay on biographical fiction.

Numerous news and feature articles, essays, book reviews, and columns in the Columbia Flier, the Howard County Times, the Laurel Leader, the Raleigh News & Observer, Southern Changes, Spectator Magazine.

Interviews

"Interview with John Gregory Brown," Louisiana Cultural Vistas Winter, 1997-1998. Pp. 36-45.

Lousianna Endowment for the Humanities 2002 Book of the Year for Audubon's Watch.

George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship, 1998-1999

Steinbeck Award for Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1996, U.K. Awarded for the best novel of the year published in the United Kingdom by a writer under forty years old.

Regional Winner — Granta magazine Best Young American Novelists competition, 1996.

The Lillian Smith Book Award for Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994. Awarded by the Southern Regional Council for the year's best work of fiction about the South.

Lyndhurst Prize, 1993. Three-year fellowship from the Lyndhurst Foundation.

Washington and Lee University, University of Georgia, The American University, Tulane University, The Seven Hills School (Cincinnati, Ohio), North Carolina State University, Johns Hipkins University, Howard County (Maryland) Poetry and Literature Society, Sweet Briar College, J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College, Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, Vero Beach (Florida) Center for the Arts, University of Richmond, Eudora Welty Festival (Jackson, Mississippi), Columbia Festival of the Arts, Virginia Festival of the Book, and readings throughout the United States while on book tour.

Associated Writing Programs

Authors Guild

American Association of University Professors

National Book Critics Circle

Southern Literature Council of Charleston (board member 2001-2003)

Screenwriters Guild of America (inactive)

Reviews of my novels have appeared in the following newspapers and magazines:

New York Times, New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Detroit Free Press, Boston Globe, The London Times, The Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and Society, Newsday, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Southern Living, The Times Literary Supplement, Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Post, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginian Pilot and Ledger-Star, Dallas Morning News, Orlando Sentinel, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Roanoke Times & World News, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Toledo Blade, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Austin American-Statesman, Asheville Citizen-Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Albany Times-Union, Greensboro News & Record, Santa Fe New Mexican, St. Petersburg Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Dayton Daily News, Hartford Courant, Seattle Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Tulanian, The Southern Quarterly.

 

 

 

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