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Wells Tower
Born (1973-04-14) April 14, 1973 (age 48)
Vancouver, Canada
OccupationWriter
EducationWesleyan University (BA),
Columbia University (MFA)
Notable worksEverything Ravaged, Everything Burned
Notable awardsThe Paris Review Plimpton (Discovery) Prize, two Pushcart Prizes

Wells Tower (born April 14, 1973) is an American writer of short stories and non-fiction. In 2009 he published his first short story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) to much critical acclaim. His short fiction has also been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, Vice, Harper's Magazine, A Public Space, Fence and other periodicals.

Early life, education, and early career[edit]

Tower was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but grew up in North Carolina.[1][2] He played guitar in the punk band Hellbender for 6 years beginning his senior year of high school.[3]

He received a B.A. in anthropology and sociology from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Columbia University's School of the Arts.[4] After graduating from Wesleyan, he traveled around the United States doing odd jobs.[5] He began his professional career when he convinced an editor at The Washington Post Magazine to publish an article about a carnival worker.[5]

Tower is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, the 2002 Plimpton (Discovery) Prize from The Paris Review,[6] and a Henfield Foundation Award.

Writing career[edit]

Farrar, Straus and Giroux published Tower's first short story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned in 2009.[7] The book was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review by Edmund White and in the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani.[5] Kakutani picked it as one of her ten best books of 2009.[8] It was also a finalist for The Story Prize. The short story from which the collection's title is taken is about a community of Vikings growing older, told in a modern-day vernacular, in a similar vein as the film Severed Ways.

In June 2010, Tower was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers.[9][10] On June 10, 2010, he was presented with the Tenth Annual New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, a $10,000 prize for an American writer under 40.[11]

His work was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2010.[12][13] Since 2010, his nonfiction reporting has been featured in The Best American Sports Writing three times, for "Own Goal" (2011), originally published in Harper's Magazine and a finalist for a National Magazine Award for Profile Writing; "Welcome to the Far East Conference" (2012), originally published in GQ; and "Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant?" (2015), originally published in GQ.

In 2014, Tower was a finalist for two National Magazine Awards, in Essays and Criticism for "The Old Man at Burning Man" and in Fiction for "The Dance Contest."[14]

In a segment from the July 19, 2018 episode of the Still Processing podcast, host Jenna Wortham discussed an incident involving Tower at a public reading held as part of the 2018 Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop in Portland, Oregon. The piece Tower selected to read from ("Own Goal," published in Harper's Magazine in 2010) featured direct quotes from homeless individuals, some of which were allegedly misogynistic. According to Wortham, several members of the audience walked out in protest.[15] Tower issued a public apology at an assembly the following day.[16]

Personal life[edit]

As of 2009, Tower divides his time between Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York.[17]

His Facebook page has been inactive since August of 2013. [18]

Bibliography[edit]

  • "Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant?," GQ, October 2, 2017
  • "No Amount of Traffic or Instagrammers or Drunks Can Take the Magic Out of (Semi-) Wilderness," Outside, June 7, 2016
  • "The Old Man at Burning Man," GQ, August 31, 2015
  • "The Great Paper Caper," GQ, November 1, 2014
  • "From Wells Tower’s ‘The Dance Contest'," McSweeney's, Issue 44
  • "The Elvis Impersonator, the Karate Instructor, a Fridge Full of Severed Heads, and the Plot 2 Kill the President," GQ, September 29, 2013
  • "In Gold We Trust," GQ, January 6, 2012
  • "Welcome to the Far East Conference," GQ, April 17, 2011
  • "Moto," ESPN, March 2, 2011
  • "Own Goal," Harper's Magazine, June 2010
  • Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009
  • "The Thing with Feathers," Outside, March 1, 2006
  • "The Brown Coast," The Paris Review, Spring 2002 (No. 161)
  • "Retreat," McSweeney's, Issue 30 (March 2009)
  • "Executors of Important Energies," McSweeney's, Issue 14 (September 2004)
  • "Down Through The Valley," The Paris Review, September 2001 (No. 159)
  • "Leopard," The New Yorker, November 10, 2008
  • "Door In Your Eye," A Public Space," Winter 2008 (Issue 05)
  • "Wild America," Vice, December 2, 2000
  • "On the Show," Harper's Magazine, May 2007
  • "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned," Fence, Fall/Winter 2002 (Vol. 4, No. 2)

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Author Wells Tower Shares His Hatred of the Internet, His Love of Action Plots, and an Old Norse Recipe". Huffpost New York. June 10, 2010. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
  2. ^ Varno, David (April 2009). "An Interview with Wells Tower". Bookslut. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
  3. ^ Neyfakh, Leon (March 2009). "Wells Tower, Fiction Writer, Is Looking for Joy". New York Observer. Retrieved March 23, 2009.
  4. ^ Neyfakh, Leon (2009). "Wells Tower, Fiction Writer, Is Looking For Joy". The New York Observer. Retrieved on March 28, 2009
  5. ^ a b c Konigsberg, Eric (April 11, 2009). "Witness to Luckless Lives on the Periphery". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-06-11.
  6. ^ "Paris Review - Writers, Quotes, Biography, Interviews, Artists".
  7. ^ White, Edmund (2009). "Review of Everything Ravaged Everything Burned". The New York Times. Retrieved on March 28, 2009.
  8. ^ "Michiko Kakutani's Top 10 Books of 2009". The New York Times. Retrieved April 25, 2010.
  9. ^ Bosman, Julie (June 2, 2010). "20 Young Writers Earn the Envy of Many Others". The New York Times.
  10. ^ https://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/09/13/100913fi_fiction_tower
  11. ^ http://media-newswire.com/release_1120605.html
  12. ^ Peschel, Joseph (October 15, 2010). "Year's best stories have staying power". The Boston Globe.
  13. ^ "Jacket Copy". Los Angeles Times.
  14. ^ American Society of Magazine Editors. March 27, 2014. http://www.magazine.org/about-asme/pressroom/asme-press-releases/asme/national-magazine-awards-2014-finalists-announced.
  15. ^ Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham (July 19, 2018). "We Can't Burn It All Down (Even Though Sometimes We Want To)". Still Processing (Podcast). New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2018.
  16. ^ Baer, April (July 24, 2018). "Tin House Gathering Erupts Over Wells Tower Reading". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
  17. ^ Baron, Zach (2009). "Spring Guide: Wells Tower Offers a Strange Way to Squeeze a Day". The Village Voice. Retrieved March 28, 2009.
  18. ^ https://www.facebook.com/WellsTower/. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links[edit]

  • David Sedaris Reads Wells Tower for The New Yorker fiction podcast
  • An Interview with Wells Tower, The Brooklyn Review
  • "Books to give you hope: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned," The Guardian
  • Wells Tower at Macmillan Books
  • Review of Everything Ravaged Everything Burned by Michiko Kakutani, from The New York Times
  • The World We Live In Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned review by Deborah Eisenberg from The New York Review of Books
  • An Interview with Wells Tower on KRUI's The Lit Show
  • The Still Lives of Wells Tower by Paul Maliszewski, from The Brooklyn Rail