Literary Talent - John Irving - Author Biographies

It has been said that John Irving often uses the literary technique of a story within a story and he uses it masterfully. A few his novels have a character who is a writer. John Irving is considered one of the best novelists in modern literature. He is a master storyteller and comic genius of our age.

John Irving was born John Wallace Blunt, Jr., on March 2, 1942, in Exeter, New Hampshire. His father was serving as an airman stationed in the Pacific. John never did meet his father.

John's parents were divorced when he was only two years old. When his mother married Colin Irving in 1948, Colin adopted John. His mother changed his name to John Winslow Irving. Winslow was her maiden name.

John lived with his grandmother, in a large old house, until he was six years old when his mother remarried. When he was growing up, he was a moody and aloof child and that house provided many places where he could get off by himself. He said that no adult would talk to him about his father. So, in his mind, he demonized his father.

John says that it was when he was almost 40 years old and in the process of a divorce from his first wife, that his mother gave him a packet of letters that his father had written in 1943. This is when he found out that his dad had wanted contact with him. By this time his father had already died.

John had his first novel, 'Setting Free the Bees,' published when he was only 26 years old. In 1972, after his second novel was published, he was appointed Writer-in-Residence at the University of Iowa. While there John received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

It was in 1976 that John moved to Massachusetts to become Assistant Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. He served as Writer-in-Residence at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.

It wasn't until 1978, when 'The World According to Garp,' was published, that John Irving was catapulted onto the 'Best Seller' realm. All his books since then have been best sellers. His later works have been compared to the work of Charles Dickens.

John had been active in wrestling while he was growing up and in college. In the 1980s, he coached wresting at prep schools all while he continued his writing.

In 1999, John wrote the screenplay for his novel, 'Cider House Rules,' and ultimately won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Since then he has continued to adapt his works into motion pictures.

John is known for is strong opinions and is anti censorship. John says, "If you feel so strongly about what's on television, don't have one. If you feel so strongly about people having abortions, don't have one. But, we are a country that likes to be punitive. We want to restrict. It is a kind of religious fervor run amok."

In 1987, John Irving John married his literary agent, Janet Turnbull. They live in Toronto and Southern Vermont. John has two sons.

Books by John Irving:

Novels:
Setting Free the Bees (1968)
The Water-Method Man (1972)
The 154-Pound Marriage (1974)
The World According to Garp (1974)
The Hotel New Hampshire (1981)
The Cider House Rules (1985)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (1988)
A Son of the Circus (1994)
A Widow for One Year (1998)
The Fourth Hand (2001)
Until I Find You (2005)
Last Night in Twisted River (2009)

Omnibus:
3 by Irving (1980)
Three Complete Novels (1995)

Collections:
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (1993)

Picture Books:
A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound (2004)

Non Fiction:
The Imaginary Girlfriend: A Memoir (1996)
My Movie Business: A Memoir (1999)

Gibson Flying V

Arianna Huffington interviews author Carl Honore on VOKLE - pt.3

In her first ever Huffington Post Booktalk via VOKLE, Arianna Huffington interviews author Carl Honore on his best-selling book, "In Praise of Slowness," and takes live video and text questions from the audience. First broadcasted on The Huffington Post, October 19, 2009.

Gibson ES dj-shisu

Best-Selling Author Asks, WHY Are You Seeking to Publish Your Book?

Seemingly every day writers send me notes asking me how they can go about the business of getting their books published.

Responding to each one, individually, is taking more of my time, and at last I have decided to augment and organize my counsel in a more detailed format. I'm presenting a fraction of this material in this article.

Usually, I can steer writers this way or that, and make at least a small contribution to speeding their trajectory. But of late, I've found myself asking more questions than answering them. And the most stunning and provocative is this one:

"Why are you seeking to publish your book?"

This makes people gasp. To some, it's akin to asking, "Why breathe?" They are so much sold on the desirability or even perceived necessity of becoming published that asking WHY seems absurd.

But I assure you it isn't.

When I was selling advertising for our college newspaper I stopped at a hamburger place that seemed like a McDonald's wannabe. Typical franchise look, with neon and bright fluorescent lighting, it was managed by a gentleman who oversaw all of its operations.

He seemed oddly out of place. I learned that by training he was an attorney. He had practiced criminal law in New York.

I told him that practicing law was one of my dreams, and trial work seemed like a wonderful challenge.

"There's only one downside to practicing criminal law," he said drolly. "It's your clients."

"What's wrong with them?" I asked.

"They're CRIMINALS!" he quipped.

Why, he asked with obvious concern, did I want to become an attorney?

Prestige, power, and the portents of money beckoned. I also wanted to help people, particularly if there were heroics attached.

By the time I could afford to foot the bill for law school, I was already in the thrall of another profession, teaching and training, which I found quite appealing and rewarding. While attending to my consultancy, I graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and became a licensed attorney, only to find that my WHY was no longer as strong or as relevant as it had been.

Already, I earned attorney-money. I was autonomous as an independent consultant, and as a Ph.D. and professor I had substantial professional prestige. For me, the nuts and bolts of everyday lawyering had become unnecessary.

In essence, wanting to become a lawyer had absolutely nothing to do with LOVE OF THE LAW. It had much to do with pursuing SECONDARY GAINS, some of which I mentioned, above. Plus, there was something of a family tradition that I wanted to channel.

Today, I practice a little, and I screen and refer out certain cases beyond my areas of expertise and interest. But the law isn't my primary career, which hasn't really changed that much for the past few decades.

I hope you can see where I'm going with this.

WHY do you want to publish a book? Is it for the thing, itself, because of the love of writing? Is it to enjoy the process of compiling words in such a copious and organized manner that they appear to have bookishness?

Or is it for financial gain or egoistic satisfactions? Have you just always wanted to write a book? Is there someone you know and admire or are secretly competitive with to whom you want to prove your merit?

You need to answer clearly and honestly because the world doesn't need yet one more unfulfilled author.

YOU have to need it, and need it, deeply, passionately, and unrelentingly, because getting published is not easy.

Or, in the alternative, you need to possess a remarkable detachment from the entire process, somewhat like what we would hear from a Zen monk.

"Gary-san, your book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and is a big best-seller!"

"And, so?"

"Gary-san, your book has sold a few thousand copies, it is an utter dud, a huge disappointment. It will never earn back the advance the publisher paid you nor will it pay you back for the time and effort you invested!"

"And, so?"

If you can roll with either scenario with utter equanimity, well then, your WHY is either so strong or so irrelevant as to be completely acceptable and workable.

Gibson ES