Michael Cunningham
Encyclopedia
Michael Cunningham is an American
writer
, best known for his 1998 novel
The Hours
, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999.
and grew up in Pasadena, California
. He studied English literature
at Stanford University
where he earned his degree. Later, at the University of Iowa
, he received a Michener Fellowship and was awarded a Master of Fine Arts
degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop
. While studying at Iowa, he had short stories published in the Atlantic Monthly and the Paris Review
. His short story, "White Angel", was later used as a chapter in his novel A Home at the End of the World. It was included in "The Best American Short Stories, 1989," published by Houghton Mifflin.
In 1993, Cunningham received a Guggenheim Fellowship
and in 1998 a National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship. In 1995 he was awarded the Whiting Writers' Award
. Cunningham has taught at the Fine Arts Work Center
in Provincetown
, Massachusetts
and in the creative writing
M.F.A. program
at Brooklyn College
. He is currently professor of creative writing
at Yale University
.
established Cunningham as a major force in American writing, and his most recent novel, Specimen Days
, was also well received by American critics. Cunningham has edited a book of poetry and prose by Walt Whitman
, Laws for Creations, and has co-written, with Susan Minot
, a screenplay adapted from Minot's novel Evening. He is also a producer for the 2007 film, Evening
, which stars Glenn Close
, Toni Collette
, and Meryl Streep
.
In November, 2010, Cunningham judged one of NPR
's "Three Minute Fiction" contests.
and has been in a long-term domestic partnership
with psychoanalyst Ken Corbett, he dislikes being referred to as a gay writer, according to a PlanetOut article. While being gay greatly influences his work, he feels that it should not be his defining characteristic.
For The Hours, Cunningham was awarded the:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, best known for his 1998 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
The Hours
The Hours (novel)
The Hours is a 1998 novel written by Michael Cunningham. It won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was later made into an Oscar-winning 2002 movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.-Plot introduction:The book...
, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999.
Early life and education
Cunningham was born in Cincinnati, OhioCincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
and grew up in Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
. He studied English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
where he earned his degree. Later, at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
, he received a Michener Fellowship and was awarded a Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
. While studying at Iowa, he had short stories published in the Atlantic Monthly and the Paris Review
Paris Review
The Paris Review is a literary quarterly founded in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton. Plimpton edited the Review from its founding until his death in 2003. In its first five years, The Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S...
. His short story, "White Angel", was later used as a chapter in his novel A Home at the End of the World. It was included in "The Best American Short Stories, 1989," published by Houghton Mifflin.
In 1993, Cunningham received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
and in 1998 a National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowship. In 1995 he was awarded the Whiting Writers' Award
Whiting Writers' Award
The Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2007, winners receive US $50,000.-External links:**...
. Cunningham has taught at the Fine Arts Work Center
Fine Arts Work Center
The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise devoted to encouraging the growth and development of emerging visual artists and writers through residency programs, to the propagation of aesthetic values and experience, and to the restoration of the year-round vitality of the historic art...
in Provincetown
Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,431 at the 2000 census, with an estimated 2007 population of 3,174...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
and in the creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
M.F.A. program
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
at Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
. He is currently professor of creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
.
Career
The HoursThe Hours (novel)
The Hours is a 1998 novel written by Michael Cunningham. It won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was later made into an Oscar-winning 2002 movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.-Plot introduction:The book...
established Cunningham as a major force in American writing, and his most recent novel, Specimen Days
Specimen Days
Specimen Days is a 2005 novel by American writer Michael Cunningham. It contains three stories: one that takes place in the past, one in the present, and one in the future. Each of the three stories depicts three central, semi-consistent character-types: a young boy, a man, and a woman...
, was also well received by American critics. Cunningham has edited a book of poetry and prose by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, Laws for Creations, and has co-written, with Susan Minot
Susan Minot
Susan Minot is a prize-winning American novelist and short story writer.Minot was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Concord Academy and then attended Brown University, where she studied writing and painting; in 1983 she graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts with...
, a screenplay adapted from Minot's novel Evening. He is also a producer for the 2007 film, Evening
Evening (film)
Evening is a 2007 German-American drama film directed by Lajos Koltai. The screenplay by Susan Minot and Michael Cunningham is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot.-Plot:...
, which stars Glenn Close
Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
, Toni Collette
Toni Collette
Antonia "Toni" Collette is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on stage, television and film as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni Collette & the Finish....
, and Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
.
In November, 2010, Cunningham judged one of NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's "Three Minute Fiction" contests.
Personal life
Although Cunningham is gayGay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
and has been in a long-term domestic partnership
Domestic partnership
A domestic partnership is a legal or personal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union...
with psychoanalyst Ken Corbett, he dislikes being referred to as a gay writer, according to a PlanetOut article. While being gay greatly influences his work, he feels that it should not be his defining characteristic.
Novels
- 1984 Golden States
- 1990 A Home at the End of the WorldA Home at the End of the WorldA Home at the End of the World is a 1990 novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Michael Cunningham.The book is narrated in the first person, with the narrator changing in each chapter. Bobby and Jonathan are the main narrators, but several chapters are narrated by Alice, Jonathan's mother,...
- 1995 Flesh and Blood
- 1998 The HoursThe Hours (novel)The Hours is a 1998 novel written by Michael Cunningham. It won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was later made into an Oscar-winning 2002 movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.-Plot introduction:The book...
- 2005 Specimen DaysSpecimen DaysSpecimen Days is a 2005 novel by American writer Michael Cunningham. It contains three stories: one that takes place in the past, one in the present, and one in the future. Each of the three stories depicts three central, semi-consistent character-types: a young boy, a man, and a woman...
- 2010 By NightfallBy NightfallBy Nightfall is the sixth novel by Pulitzer Prize winning American author, Michael Cunningham.-Plot:Peter and his wife, Rebecca--who edits a mid-level art magazine--have settled into a comfortable life in Manhattan's art world, but their staid existence is disrupted by the arrival of Rebecca's much...
Screenplays
- 2004 A Home at the End of the WorldA Home at the End of the World (film)A Home at the End of the World is a 2004 drama film directed by Michael Mayer. The screenplay by Michael Cunningham was adapted from his 1990 novel of the same title.-Plot synopsis:...
- 2007 EveningEvening (film)Evening is a 2007 German-American drama film directed by Lajos Koltai. The screenplay by Susan Minot and Michael Cunningham is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot.-Plot:...
Contributor
- 2000 Drawn By The Sea (exhibition catalogueExhibition catalogueThere are two types of exhibition catalogue : a printed list of exhibits at an art exhibition; and a directory of exhibitors at a trade fair or business-to-business event.-Art or museum exhibition catalogues:...
text; 110 signed copies) - 2001 The Voyage OutThe Voyage OutThe Voyage Out is the first novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1915 by Duckworth; and published in the U.S. in 1920 by Doran.Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of...
by Virginia WoolfVirginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
(Modern Library Classics edition) (Introduction) - 2001 I Am Not This Body: The Pinhole Photographs of Barbara Ess (Text)
- 2004 Washington SquareWashington Square (novel)Washington Square is a short novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine, it is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father...
by Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
(Signet Classics edition) (Afterword) - 2004 Death In VeniceDeath in VeniceThe novella Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann, and was first published in 1913 as Der Tod in Venedig. The plot of the work presents a great writer suffering writer's block who visits Venice and is liberated and uplifted, then increasingly obsessed, by the sight of a...
by Thomas MannThomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
(new translation by Michael Henry HeimMichael Henry HeimMichael Henry Heim is a Professor of Slavic Languages, at the University California at Los Angeles . He received his doctorate at Harvard in 1971...
) (Introduction) - 2006 Laws for Creations, Poems by Walt WhitmanWalt WhitmanWalter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
(Editor and introduction) - 2007 a Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer edited by Eve EnslerEve EnslerEve Ensler is an American playwright, performer, feminist and activist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues.- Personal life :...
and Mollie Doyle (Short Story, The Destruction Artist)
Awards and achievements
- "White Angel" was included in the 1989 Best American Short StoriesBest American seriesThe Best American Series is an annually-published collection of books, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, each of which features a different genre or theme. Each book selects from works published in North America during the previous year, selected by a guest editor who is an established writer...
. - "Mr. Brother" was included in the 1999 O. Henry Prize StoriesO. Henry AwardThe O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
.
For The Hours, Cunningham was awarded the:
- Pulitzer Prize for FictionPulitzer Prize for FictionThe Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
- 1999 - PEN/Faulkner AwardPEN/Faulkner Award for FictionThe PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to...
- 1999 - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Book AwardStonewall Book AwardSponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association , the Stonewall Book Award is for LGBT books...
- 1999
External links
- Michael Cunningham's website
- 2004 article by Randy Shulman from Metro WeeklyMetro WeeklyMetro Weekly is a free weekly magazine-style publication for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. It was first published on May 5, 1994. Metro Weekly includes local news, interviews with community leaders and politicians, community event calendars,...
- Yale University English Department faculty profile
- Audio: Michael Cunningham in conversation with Margaret Atwood at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2007