Rebecca Housel
Encyclopedia
Rebecca Housel is an author/editor listed in the Directory of American Poets and Writers and sponsored member of the National Association of Science Writers
by Prevention
magazine's Rebecca Skloot
and environmental writer, Sharon Levy. Housel is known for her prose in popular culture, philosophy, film, medical humanities, and young adult/middle grade fiction. Housel is a feminist scholar and social theorist influenced by Jean Baudrillard
, Judith Butler
, Hannah Arendt
, and Joseph Campbell
. Housel speaks multiple languages, including French
and Hebrew. Her literary influences show a deep and compassionate global perspective with references to the Bhagavad Gita
, Upanishads, Tao Te Ching
, Sir Thomas More's Utopia
, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Ayn Rand
, Albert Einstein's Relativity
and Special Relativity
, Brian Greene's Super String Theory, Paulo Coelho
, Flannery O'Connor
, Margaret Atwood
, and Stephen King
.
on a full merit scholarship and graduated High Honors with a Bachelors (1997) and a Masters (1998). At University of Rochester, Rebecca was a Senior Scholar, working with Thomas Hahn, a renowned Robin Hood
scholar and medievalist; her later work was guided by Guggenheim
and MacArthur
Fellow, Joanna Scott
, who is also the recipient of multiple prestigious literary awards such as the LA Times Book Award, the Aga Khan, and the Pushcart Prize, as well as being a Pulitzer-finalist. Another early professor who would later influence Housel's work was Derek Harrison, a philosophy professor acknowledged in Housel's edited volume Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of Immortality (2009) with J. Jeremy Wisnewski, part of William Irwin's Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series with John Wiley & Sons
.
Housel received her Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales
in Sydney, Australia, where she studied with innovative linguist and nonfiction writer Suzanne Eggins and Anne Brewster, an international scholar and writer known for her use of fictocriticism. Housel studied patterns in women's cancer diagnoses, discovering through qualitative research, a connection with sustained, consistent physical and/or emotional stress six months to one year prior to a diagnosis. Housel used a transnational, intersubjective, reflexive approach that lead to two forthcoming books (written in 2005-2006) on the subject, where Housel first coined the terms pathogynography and ethnogynography in reference to women's illness narratives.
Housel currently lives in the United States
. Over the last decade, she has written and edited 11 books and more than 40 essays, articles, book chapters, book reviews, and encyclopedia entries. Rebecca Housel has made over 50 lectures and speeches at universities, schools, and other venues. She recently completed a signing and lecture tour of the Northeastern United States for her books on X-Men
and Twilight.
supervised-visitiation center in Brockton, Massachusetts. She worked with Nick's Comedy Stop to raise money for the visitation center and awareness about domestic violence. Housel also trained to be a domestic violence victim advocate and volunteered as a visitation supervisor for biological parent visits with abused children. She briefly attended Massasoit Community College before moving to New York State.
Her experience with domestic violence influenced Housel's work in her later volume on Twilight, where Housel explores how a 100-year old vampire who only looks 17 initiates a real 17-year old girl in an intimate relationship after stalking the girl by climbing through an unsecured window of her home at night to watch her sleep, watching her movements while hidden in the woods near her home, secretly following her on day-trips with friends, etc.
, St. John Fisher College, and Rochester Institute of Technology, where she founded a writing scholarship called the Phoenix Fiction Award, also founding a writing club, Inklings, in honor of C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien. Housel began using more pop culture and philosophy in her writing curriculum to get the interest of her RIT students, leading to her book chapters on the philosophy of superheroes, poker
and Monty Python
.
Housel wrote The High Seas Series from 1998–2000, publishing with High Noon Press in 2001. The Series is a five-book short-novel set of middle-grade fiction that was also meant to be used for new adult readers with a second-grade readability level. The books take place in maritime communities of the 19th century with characters ranging in age from 9-16. The books grew out of research done with Hahn and Scott at the University of Rochester.
Rebecca served as the national Film Adaptation Area Chair for the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association from 2004–2009; she served as Medical Humanities Area Chair from 2007-2008. Housel still serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards for the Journal of Popular Culture
and Journal of American Culture.
Housel was appointed to the New York College English Association Board of Directors in 2003; from 2006–2008, Housel was elected to the position of Vice President. In 2008, Housel became President. Housel also started an e-journal called NYCEA NEWS, which she edited and webmastered through fall 2010.
Rebecca Housel met William Irwin
in 2003 at a State University of New York at Buffalo conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture. From there, the two worked together within Irwin's two book series on the subjects. Her most recent project with Irwin is being co-edited with philosopher, George Dunn, entitled, True Blood and Philosophy, forthcoming in June 2010.
In 2003, after surviving multiple battles with cancer, Housel started a nonprofit with Gilda's Club
called the Phoenix Fund. Organizing an awareness walk called 'Survive and Thrive', Housel's fund helped raise money to defer medical costs not covered by health insurance for brain tumor patients. In 2007, the fund was transferred to Strong Memorial Hospital
, where the majority of patients who utilized the Fund were treated.
In 2007, Housel started a website for Steph's Fund, a grassroots nonprofit in New York State that contributes to breast cancer awareness and helps a young family who lost their mother to breast cancer in 2006.
Housel is currently writing and editing. She also does lectures on a variety of topics, including disability, cancer, popular culture, writing, and the college experience.
in 1995; the author's fictional work using historical contexts and complex characters influenced Housel's later works.
Housel also had meetings with middle grade/young adult authors, Elvira Woodruff and Bruce Coville
in the 1990s, as well as children's author/illustrator Steven Kellogg
. Eric Kimmel
was another young adult author Housel would meet during that time period. These meetings would prove very influential on Housel's writing.
Jarhead
author, Anthony Swofford
met Housel while speaking at Rochester Institute of Technology; within the next year, Swofford's book was adapted into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Jake Gyllenhall and Jamie Foxx
.
Housel's connection to Joanna Scott
was made during Housel's years at the University of Rochester. Scott pushed Housel to seek representation for her writing; Scott also encouraged Housel to pursue a writing career. In 2003, Housel was a guest instructor for Scott's Advanced Creative Writing Course at the University of Rochester.
Housel also met with poet, Barbara Jordan
, at the University of Rochester, as well as James Longenbach
. Jordan was very influential on Housel's eye toward poetic prose.
Housel dined with Harvard-educated author, Colson Whitehead
in Rochester during his 2002 visit to promote his book The Intuitionist. Whitehead had received a MacArthur
Fellowship in 2002.
Housel met Andre Dubus III
in 2004; Dubus's House of Sand and Fog
was a National Book Award
finalist in 1999 and became a film adaptation of the same name in 2003.
Housel was sponsored by essayist, science writer and best-selling author, Rebecca Skloot
, to the National Association of Science Writers
in 2007. Skloot's most recent book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
came out in February 2010.
Housel was approached in 2009 by Emmy-winning writer/producer, Thomas Wagner (Writer)
(who also received an Academy nod for his musical composition for HBO's "Daughter of the Bride"). Known best for his Emmy-winning PBS documentary on Lucille Ball
, Wagner went to Housel for her expertise in American comic books.
National Association of Science Writers
The National Association of Science Writers was created in 1934 by a dozen science journalists and reporters in New York City. The aim of the organization was to improve the craft of science journalism and to promote good science reportage....
by Prevention
Prevention (magazine)
Prevention is an American healthy lifestyle magazine, started in 1950, and published by Rodale Press in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The range of subjects includes food, nutrition, workouts, beauty, and cooking. It was founded by J. I. Rodale...
magazine's Rebecca Skloot
Rebecca Skloot
Rebecca L. Skloot is a freelance science writer who specializes in science and medicine. Her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks , was one of the best-selling new books of the year, staying on the New York Times Bestseller List for over 32 weeks and optioned to be made into a movie by...
and environmental writer, Sharon Levy. Housel is known for her prose in popular culture, philosophy, film, medical humanities, and young adult/middle grade fiction. Housel is a feminist scholar and social theorist influenced by Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...
, Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
, Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
, and Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
. Housel speaks multiple languages, including French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Hebrew. Her literary influences show a deep and compassionate global perspective with references to the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita
The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...
, Upanishads, Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
The Tao Te Ching, Dao De Jing, or Daodejing , also simply referred to as the Laozi, whose authorship has been attributed to Laozi, is a Chinese classic text...
, Sir Thomas More's Utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
, Albert Einstein's Relativity
Theory of relativity
The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....
and Special Relativity
Special relativity
Special relativity is the physical theory of measurement in an inertial frame of reference proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".It generalizes Galileo's...
, Brian Greene's Super String Theory, Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist.-Biography:Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with "My dear, your father is an engineer. He's a logical,...
, Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...
, Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
, and Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
.
General biography
Housel was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a multi-cultural family. Housel attended New England Hebrew Academy in Boston, later transferring to public high school in southeastern Massachusetts. She attended University of RochesterUniversity of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
on a full merit scholarship and graduated High Honors with a Bachelors (1997) and a Masters (1998). At University of Rochester, Rebecca was a Senior Scholar, working with Thomas Hahn, a renowned Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
scholar and medievalist; her later work was guided by Guggenheim
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 MacArthur
MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
Fellow, Joanna Scott
Joanna Scott
Joanna Scott is an American author and Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester.Scott has received critical acclaim for her novels...
, who is also the recipient of multiple prestigious literary awards such as the LA Times Book Award, the Aga Khan, and the Pushcart Prize, as well as being a Pulitzer-finalist. Another early professor who would later influence Housel's work was Derek Harrison, a philosophy professor acknowledged in Housel's edited volume Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of Immortality (2009) with J. Jeremy Wisnewski, part of William Irwin's Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series with John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
.
Housel received her Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
in Sydney, Australia, where she studied with innovative linguist and nonfiction writer Suzanne Eggins and Anne Brewster, an international scholar and writer known for her use of fictocriticism. Housel studied patterns in women's cancer diagnoses, discovering through qualitative research, a connection with sustained, consistent physical and/or emotional stress six months to one year prior to a diagnosis. Housel used a transnational, intersubjective, reflexive approach that lead to two forthcoming books (written in 2005-2006) on the subject, where Housel first coined the terms pathogynography and ethnogynography in reference to women's illness narratives.
Housel currently lives in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Over the last decade, she has written and edited 11 books and more than 40 essays, articles, book chapters, book reviews, and encyclopedia entries. Rebecca Housel has made over 50 lectures and speeches at universities, schools, and other venues. She recently completed a signing and lecture tour of the Northeastern United States for her books on X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
and Twilight.
Early life
Housel was diagnosed with cancer at age 20. At the time, Rebecca was a stand-up comedian at Nick's Comedy Stop on Warrenton Ave., in Boston, Massachusetts. She was also a survivor of domestic violence and volunteered at asupervised-visitiation center in Brockton, Massachusetts. She worked with Nick's Comedy Stop to raise money for the visitation center and awareness about domestic violence. Housel also trained to be a domestic violence victim advocate and volunteered as a visitation supervisor for biological parent visits with abused children. She briefly attended Massasoit Community College before moving to New York State.
Her experience with domestic violence influenced Housel's work in her later volume on Twilight, where Housel explores how a 100-year old vampire who only looks 17 initiates a real 17-year old girl in an intimate relationship after stalking the girl by climbing through an unsecured window of her home at night to watch her sleep, watching her movements while hidden in the woods near her home, secretly following her on day-trips with friends, etc.
Career
Rebecca Housel began her career as a professor of English teaching at Nazareth CollegeNazareth College (New York)
Nazareth College of Rochester, NY, is a private liberal arts college in Pittsford, New York, a suburb of Rochester.-History:Nazareth was founded in 1924 by the Sisters of St. Joseph. The first class, comprising 25 young women, began their studies in a large mansion on Lake Avenue in Rochester, New...
, St. John Fisher College, and Rochester Institute of Technology, where she founded a writing scholarship called the Phoenix Fiction Award, also founding a writing club, Inklings, in honor of C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien. Housel began using more pop culture and philosophy in her writing curriculum to get the interest of her RIT students, leading to her book chapters on the philosophy of superheroes, poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
and Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
.
Housel wrote The High Seas Series from 1998–2000, publishing with High Noon Press in 2001. The Series is a five-book short-novel set of middle-grade fiction that was also meant to be used for new adult readers with a second-grade readability level. The books take place in maritime communities of the 19th century with characters ranging in age from 9-16. The books grew out of research done with Hahn and Scott at the University of Rochester.
Rebecca served as the national Film Adaptation Area Chair for the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association from 2004–2009; she served as Medical Humanities Area Chair from 2007-2008. Housel still serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards for the Journal of Popular Culture
Journal of Popular Culture
The Journal of Popular Culture is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association.The Journal of Popular Culture publishes academic essays on all aspects of popular or mass culture...
and Journal of American Culture.
Housel was appointed to the New York College English Association Board of Directors in 2003; from 2006–2008, Housel was elected to the position of Vice President. In 2008, Housel became President. Housel also started an e-journal called NYCEA NEWS, which she edited and webmastered through fall 2010.
Rebecca Housel met William Irwin
William Irwin (philosopher)
William Irwin is professor of Philosophy and Director of the Honors Program at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He was born in 1970 and raised in Yonkers, New York. Irwin attended Regis High School in Manhattan, an elite Jesuit institution, graduating in 1988. He received his B.A...
in 2003 at a State University of New York at Buffalo conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture. From there, the two worked together within Irwin's two book series on the subjects. Her most recent project with Irwin is being co-edited with philosopher, George Dunn, entitled, True Blood and Philosophy, forthcoming in June 2010.
In 2003, after surviving multiple battles with cancer, Housel started a nonprofit with Gilda's Club
Gilda's Club
Gilda's Club, named in tribute to the late comic actress Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989, is a community meeting place for people living with cancer, their families and friends. There are 22 open clubhouses and nine in development in North America...
called the Phoenix Fund. Organizing an awareness walk called 'Survive and Thrive', Housel's fund helped raise money to defer medical costs not covered by health insurance for brain tumor patients. In 2007, the fund was transferred to Strong Memorial Hospital
Strong Memorial Hospital
Strong Memorial Hospital is a 739-bed medical facility, part of the University of Rochester Medical Center complex , in Rochester, New York. Opened in 1926, is a major provider of both in-patient and out-patient medical services....
, where the majority of patients who utilized the Fund were treated.
In 2007, Housel started a website for Steph's Fund, a grassroots nonprofit in New York State that contributes to breast cancer awareness and helps a young family who lost their mother to breast cancer in 2006.
Housel is currently writing and editing. She also does lectures on a variety of topics, including disability, cancer, popular culture, writing, and the college experience.
Connections to other writers
Housel met Anne RiceAnne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
in 1995; the author's fictional work using historical contexts and complex characters influenced Housel's later works.
Housel also had meetings with middle grade/young adult authors, Elvira Woodruff and Bruce Coville
Bruce Coville
Bruce Coville is an American author of children's and young adult novels. He was born in Syracuse, New York and lives there currently; he has spent most of his life there, leaving to attend Duke University and then to live in New York City....
in the 1990s, as well as children's author/illustrator Steven Kellogg
Steven Kellogg
Steven Kellogg is an author and illustrator who has contributed over 90 books for children. He is best known for writing books about animals, for which he credits his grandmother ....
. Eric Kimmel
Eric Kimmel
Eric A. Kimmel is an American Jewish author of more than 50 children's books. His works include Caldecott Honor Book and Newbury Honor Book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins , and Sydney Taylor Book Award winners The Chanukkah Guest and Gershon's Monster.Kimmel was born in Brooklyn, New York and...
was another young adult author Housel would meet during that time period. These meetings would prove very influential on Housel's writing.
Jarhead
Jarhead (book)
Jarhead is a Gulf War memoir by author Anthony Swofford. After leaving military service, the author went on to college and earned a Masters Degree in Fine Arts at the University of Iowa.- Synopsis :...
author, Anthony Swofford
Anthony Swofford
Anthony Swofford is a writer and former United States Marine known for being the author of the book Jarhead, published in 2003, which is primarily based on his accounts of various situations encountered in the first Gulf War. This memoir was the basis of the 2005 movie of the same name, directed...
met Housel while speaking at Rochester Institute of Technology; within the next year, Swofford's book was adapted into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Jake Gyllenhall and Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
.
Housel's connection to Joanna Scott
Joanna Scott
Joanna Scott is an American author and Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at the University of Rochester.Scott has received critical acclaim for her novels...
was made during Housel's years at the University of Rochester. Scott pushed Housel to seek representation for her writing; Scott also encouraged Housel to pursue a writing career. In 2003, Housel was a guest instructor for Scott's Advanced Creative Writing Course at the University of Rochester.
Housel also met with poet, Barbara Jordan
Barbara Jordan
Barbara Charline Jordan was an American politician who was both a product and a leader, of the Civil Rights movement. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives...
, at the University of Rochester, as well as James Longenbach
James Longenbach
James Longenbach is an American critic and poet. His early critical work focused on modernist poetry , but he writes extensively about contemporary poetry, too, and has authored four books of poems: Threshold, Fleet River, Draft of a Letter, and The Iron Key...
. Jordan was very influential on Housel's eye toward poetic prose.
Housel dined with Harvard-educated author, Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is a New York-based novelist. He is best known as the author of the 2001 novel John Henry Days. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.-Early life:...
in Rochester during his 2002 visit to promote his book The Intuitionist. Whitehead had received a MacArthur
MacArthur
MacArthur or Macarthur may refer to:-Geography:* Division of Macarthur, Sydney* General MacArthur, Eastern Samar, Philippines* John D...
Fellowship in 2002.
Housel met Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is an American novelist and writer of short stories. He is a member of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.-Early life and career:...
in 2004; Dubus's House of Sand and Fog
House of Sand and Fog (novel)
House of Sand and Fog is a 1999 novel by Andre Dubus III. It was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2000 and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.-Plot:...
was a National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
finalist in 1999 and became a film adaptation of the same name in 2003.
Housel was sponsored by essayist, science writer and best-selling author, Rebecca Skloot
Rebecca Skloot
Rebecca L. Skloot is a freelance science writer who specializes in science and medicine. Her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks , was one of the best-selling new books of the year, staying on the New York Times Bestseller List for over 32 weeks and optioned to be made into a movie by...
, to the National Association of Science Writers
National Association of Science Writers
The National Association of Science Writers was created in 1934 by a dozen science journalists and reporters in New York City. The aim of the organization was to improve the craft of science journalism and to promote good science reportage....
in 2007. Skloot's most recent book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a non-fiction book by American author Rebecca Skloot. It is about Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line, known as HeLa, that came from her cervical cancer cells in 1951. The book is notable for its accessible science writing and dealing with ethical...
came out in February 2010.
Housel was approached in 2009 by Emmy-winning writer/producer, Thomas Wagner (Writer)
Thomas Wagner (writer)
Thomas Wagner is an Emmy-winning writer/producer best known his work on Finding Lucy, an American Masters PBS documentary about legendary comedienne, Lucille Ball. Wagner's script for Finding Lucy was nominated for Best Documentary Script by the Writer's Guild of America...
(who also received an Academy nod for his musical composition for HBO's "Daughter of the Bride"). Known best for his Emmy-winning PBS documentary on Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
, Wagner went to Housel for her expertise in American comic books.