Douglas Light
Encyclopedia
Douglas Light is an award winning American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 novelist, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, and short story writer. His story collection, Girls in Trouble, won the 2010 AWP Grace Paley Prize  for short fiction. It will be published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2011. His second novel, Where Night Stops, will be published in the fall 2011. His debut novel
Debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...

 East Fifth Bliss won the 'Popular Fiction' section of the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award presented by the Independent Book Publishers Association. East Fifth Bliss was filmed in 2010. The film stars Golden Globe winner Michael C. Hall
Michael C. Hall
Michael Carlyle Hall is an American actor whose television roles include David Fisher on the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and Dexter Morgan on the Showtime series Dexter. In 2009, Hall won a Golden Globe award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role in Dexter.-Early life:Hall was born in...

 of Dexter
Dexter (TV series)
Dexter is an American television drama series, which debuted on Showtime on October 1, 2006. The sixth season premiered on October 2, 2011. The series centers on Dexter Morgan , a bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer...

fame, Lucy Liu
Lucy Liu
Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal , and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda.-Early...

, and Brie Larson
Brie Larson
Brie Larson is an American actress and pop rock singer/songwriter. She is best known for her roles in United States of Tara, Sleepover, Remember The Daze and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World...

. Light received a 2010 NoMAA grant for his novel Where Night Stops. His short stories have appeared in the 2003 O. Henry Prize Stories anthology, the 2003 Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology, failbetter
Failbetter
failbetter is a quarterly online literary magazine.-Founding:Founded in 2000 by Thom Didato and David McLendon, the magazine originally evolved from a Brooklyn-based reading series that featured many writers from the Gordon Lish school of writing. McLendon left failbetter in 2003 to pursue his own...

, The Alaska Quarterly Review
The Alaska Quarterly Review
The Alaska Quarterly Review is a biannual literary journal founded in 1980 by Ronald Spatz and James Liszka at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Ronald Spatz serves as editor-in-chief...

, Guernica Magazine
Guernica Magazine
Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics is a biweekly online site that publishes art and photography, fiction, and poetry, from around the world, along with nonfiction such as letters from abroad, investigative pieces and opinion pieces on international affairs and U.S. domestic policy...

, Narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

, and other magazines.

He graduated from The City College New York and lives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Background

Light left Indiana in 1991, moving to Seattle just as the grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...

 scene was taking hold. He fell upon hard times and soon found himself homeless. Slowly, he reestablished himself.

In 1995, he moved to New York City into a six-flight walk-up building in the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...

.

While attending the City College of New York for his MA in Creative Writing, he studied under Frederic Tuten
Frederic Tuten
Frederic Tuten is an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. He has written five novels – The Adventures of Mao on the Long March , Tallien: A Brief Romance , Tintin in the New World: A Romance , Van Gogh's Bad Café and The Green Hour – as well as one book of inter-related short...

 and was award the Goodman Loan Fund Grant Award, the Danielle and Larry Nyman Family Project Award, and the Irwin and Alice Stark Short Fiction Prize for his writing.

He was a finalist for the 2002 James Jones First Novel Fellowship.

His first published short story, "Three Days. A Month. More." received a 2003 O. Henry Award and was selected for inclusion in the 2003 Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology, which was edited by Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...

 and Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith is a British novelist. To date she has written three novels. In 2003, she was included on Granta's list of 20 best young authors...

.

Light published his first novel, East Fifth Bliss, in the spring of 2007.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK