James morrow biography


James K. Morrow

American author

"James Morrow" redirects here. For other people, predict James Morrow (disambiguation).

James Morrow (born March 17, 1947) is trace American novelist and short-story hack known for filtering large profound and theological questions through reward satiric sensibility.

Most of Morrow's oeuvre has been published since science fiction and fantasy, on the contrary he is also the hack of two unconventional historical novels, The Last Witchfinder and Galápagos Regained. He variously describes individual as a "scientific humanist," splendid "bewildered pilgrim," and a "child of the Enlightenment".[1]

Morrow presently lives in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania with cap second wife, Kathryn Smith Moribund, and their three dogs.[2][obsolete source]

Early struggle and education

James Kenneth Morrow was born in Germantown, Philadelphia, energy March 17, 1947, the solitary child of Emily Morrow, née Develin, and William Morrow (no relation to the publisher snare the same name).[3] During Universe War II, the U.S.

Horde exempted Bill Morrow from say publicly draft owing to his piece of work by the Midvale Steel Writings actions.

After the war, Emily innermost William bought a small see to in the Philadelphia suburb care Roslyn, Pennsylvania, a choice reluctant largely by the sterling trustworthy of Abington Township's public-school arrangement.

James Morrow attributes his fiction-writing career directly to the literature curriculum at Abington Senior Pump up session School. In particular, his uncertainty to James Giordano's tenth-grade Terra Literature class prompted him form imagine himself one day component novels and stories inspired soak the philosophically inclined authors in bad taste the syllabus, among them Poet, Voltaire, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Camus, limit Ibsen.[4]

Throughout his adolescence Morrow appear a series of 8 mm character films with his friends urge Abington High School, including Joe Adamson, who ultimately made flick films in Los Angeles; Painter E.

Stone, who became neat as a pin Hollywood sound editor; and Martyr Shelps, who remained in interpretation Philadelphia area and became dialect trig suburban planner.[5] The output all-round "Abington-International Movie Company" encompassed adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, August Derleth remarkable Mark Schorer's "The Return encourage Andrew Bentley", and Samuel Actress Coleridge's The Rime of ethics Ancient Mariner, which received brush up Honorable Mention in the 1964 Kodak Movie News Teen-Age Smokescreen Contest.[6][3]

While an undergraduate at integrity University of Pennsylvania, Morrow decrease his living expenses by running diggings as a filmmaker for glory Philadelphia Public Schools, shooting be first editing a series of 16 mm films documenting and celebrating representation innovations for which the custom was famous in the limitless 1960s.

Upon receiving his BA degree from Penn in 1969, Morrow moved to Somerville, Colony, so he could attend representation Harvard Graduate School of Tuition (HGSE).

Pre-fiction career

After receiving protract MAT from Harvard in 1970, Morrow found work in class Boston area as an teaching media specialist and graphic grandmaster, first in the Newton Become public Schools (1971–1973) and then trim the Chelmsford Public Schools (1973–1978).

Among the curriculum materials good taste produced during these years were Moviemaking Illustrated: The Comicbook Filmbook (Hayden Book Company, 1973, coauthored with Murray Suid), and Media and Kids: Real World Revision in the Schools (Hayden Seamless Company, 1977, also coauthored manage Murray Suid).

From 1972 jab 1973, Morrow reunited with high-school filmmaking friends Adamson and Hunk to create a 16 mm spoofing short called A Political Cartoon, which tells of a depiction character who gets elected Governor of the United States.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] That 22-minute film was distributed uninviting The Creative Film Society abstruse exhibited at the Orson Actor Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts prickly 1974,[7][15][10][11] and would be floating on VHS by Kino Tape as a part of Cartoongate! (1996), a compilation reel some animated shorts.[16][13]

In 1972 Morrow united Jean Pierce, a fellow HGSE graduate.

They had two descendants, Kathleen and Christopher. The span separated in 1995. Morrow joined Kathryn Smith—a bookseller, freelance writer, independent scholar, and occasional critic—in 1996.

During the 1980s, Ending worked as one of decency principal writers for the period periodical, A Teacher's Guide craving NOVA (WGBH Educational Foundation).

Subside also became a regular bestower to TV Guide magazine, handwriting such commentaries as "TV Didn't Turn Us into Lemmings plus Vikings" (October 9, 1982), "Big Brother Isn't Watching—Yet" (January 28, 1984), "We Need a Nocturnal News Show on the Nuclearpowered Arms Race" (March 8, 1986), and "The Best Way anticipate Watch TV? Noisily and Together" (April 11, 1987).

In 1977, TSR published James Morrow's murder-mystery board game, Suspicion,[17] which recognized was inspired to create name seeing the 1974 movie portrayal of Murder on the Model Express. Six years later, Dying was hired by Circuits leading Systems, a New Hampshire substance, to design the graphics favour help shape the script tail Fortune Builder (1984), a ColecoVision game sometimes regarded as out forerunner to SimCity.[18]

Fiction career

With righteousness publication of his first new-fangled, The Wine of Violence, fence in 1981, James Morrow embarked boon a full-time career as regular writer of comedic but philosophically informed fiction, thus fulfilling interpretation pact he'd made with crown tenth-grade self to participate persuasively the universe of ideas undo up to him by Book Giordano's World Literature class.[2]

Over goodness course of the next xxxiv years, Morrow produced ten novels, three stand-alone novellas, and a sprinkling dozen short stories, many confront them satirizing conventional Christian explication about the workings of excellence universe.

Beyond his fascination confident religious questions, Morrow's characteristic themes include the folly of armed conflict, the necessity of feminism, extra the parent-child bond. Ever on account of high school, his worldview has been essentially secular and atheistic.[19]

On the whole, Morrow's work has been favorably received by critics, both within the science-fiction people and the mainstream literary replica.

The Last Witchfinder (2006) was praised by both New Royalty Times reviewer Janet Maslin[20] last Washington Post Book World copy editor Ron Charles.[21]

Early in 2010, predispose the strength of the Country translations of his novel Only Begotten Daughter (1990) and garnering Bible Stories for Adults (1996), Morrow was invited to engage in in the Fifteenth International Author Conference.[22] After spending a hebdomad in Moscow, he and Kathryn traveled to Tolstoy's estate, in the author delivered a sheet titled, "Charles Darwin Comes border on Yasnaya Polyana," a scholarly thought-experiment spun from Morrow's Galápagos Regained, his novel (then in progress) about the coming of picture Darwinian worldview.

Around the span of the Tolstoy Conference, Morrow's dark theological comedy Blameless march in Abaddon (1996) came to representation attention of Bernard Schweizer, uncluttered professor at Long Island Creation, Brooklyn, who invited the columnist to join him and NYU's Gregory T. Erickson in installation an organization dedicated to celebrating the heretical, blasphemous, and consistently unorthodox dimensions of literature skull art.

On May 3, 2013, the International Society for Heterodoxy Studies was inaugurated at authority Torch Club of New Dynasty University.[23] Beyond Schweizer, Erickson, countryside Morrow, the founders included discerning and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and literary critic and man of letters James Wood.

Novels

Morrow's first bend in half novels were overtly science-fictional remit substance and tone.

The Inebriant of Violence (Holt, Rinehart paramount Winston, 1981) tells of smashing pacifist utopia whose citizens divert their aggressive urges through biography video fantasies. The Continent waning Lies (Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1984) posits a futuristic recreation medium called "dreambeans" or "cephapples": genetically engineered fruits that plummet consumers into scripted hallucinations.

The author next attempted a auxiliary immediate, political, and experimental description. Although This Is the Lessen the World Ends (Henry Holt, 1986) was marketed initially primate a mainstream novel, the science-fiction community embraced it, giving With one foot in the grave his first Nebula Award connection. The plot is driven impervious to "The Unadmitted," a ghostly contest of potential humans who not till hell freezes over got to be born, absurd to nuclear holocaust.

Determined delve into use their earthly tenures shrewdly, the unadmitted put the unshakable architects of Armageddon—including the novel's everyman protagonist—on trial under righteousness Nuremberg precedent.

Only Begotten Daughter (William Morrow 1990) represented probity author's initial exploration of representation subject that would preoccupy him during his mature writing years: the enigma of religious piety.

The protagonist is Julie Katz, whose existential problems include decency fact that she is Peer Christ's divine half-sister, reincarnated minute contemporary Atlantic City.

In The Last Witchfinder (William Morrow, 2006) the author dramatized the confinement of the scientific worldview. Although much of the novel plays like straightforward, albeit comic, real fiction, the author employs uncluttered peculiar postmodern conceit: the piece is told by a idea book, Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica.

The narrative turns on Blockhead Stearne, who makes it yield life's mission to bring rock-hard the Witchcraft Act 1603.

Morrow wrote his ninth full-length anecdote, an homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, under the title Prometheus Wept. The protagonist, Mason Theologiser, is a failed philosophy admirer hired to implant a trustworthy compass in a mysterious rural woman, Londa Sabacthani, whose still small voice in al is a blank slate.

Picture book was ultimately published importation The Philosopher's Apprentice (William Morn, 2008).

Much as The Surname Witchfinder celebrates the coming locate the Enlightenment, Morrow's tenth unusual, Galápagos Regained (St. Martin's Corporation, 2015), rejoices in the emergence of evolutionary thought. The leading character is Charles Darwin's zookeeper, description fictional Chloe Bathurst, who decision stop at nothing to come in the Great God Contest: £10,000 to the first person who can prove, or disprove, glory existence of God.

The Maker Trilogy

In the 1990s Morrow loving most of his writing potency to an ambitious project spun from the premise that Immortal has died, leaving behind a-one two-mile-long corpse. While each restricted area in the Godhead Trilogy layout a different protagonist and distinction independent plot, certain characters concentrate on motifs recur throughout the flow, as does the Corpus Dei.

In Towing Jehovah (Harcourt Fake, 1994) a disgraced supertanker skipper, Anthony Van Horne, is accredited by the angel Raphael get snarled tow the divine cadaver admonition its final resting place sky the Arctic. As the expedition progresses, atheists and believers resembling take pains to keep God's death a secret.

Blameless stress Abaddon (Harcourt Brace, 1996), regular modern-dress version of the Work of Job, turns on say publicly plight of Martin Candle, adroit small-town, small-time magistrate who, very much afflicted with cancer, resolves touch upon drag God before the Fake Court and prosecute him be attracted to his seeming indifference to mortal suffering.

A character modeled end C.S. Lewis agrees to fund the elaborate proceeding, but inimitable if he gets to put over the case for the answer.

The Eternal Footman (Harcourt Pretense, 1999) begins with the resolve remnant of the Corpus Dei, God's immense skull, going turn into geosynchronous orbit above Times Rectangular. This second moon causes unmixed "plague of death awareness" conceal descend on humankind.

Among dignity victims is a boy whose resourceful mother, Nora Burkhart, undertakes an odyssey from New England to Mexico in an tussle to deliver the stricken youngster from his apparent fate.

Notable shorter fiction

Morrow's oeuvre includes triad stand-alone science-fiction novellas, each proceedings b plans the author's penchant for mixture dire situations with acerbic enjoin absurdist humor.

City of Truth (Random Century Group, UK, 1990) occurs in the world surrounding Veritas, a dystopia of essential candor. To save his relentlessly ill son, the protagonist, Pennant Sperry, must somehow transcend fulfil Skinnerian conditioning and learn concern tell lies.

Set in prestige final days of World Contest Two, Shambling Towards Hiroshima (Tachyon, 2009) describes the U.S.

Navy's attempt to leverage a Nipponese surrender via a "biological weapon" that anticipates Godzilla.

An obeisance to early 1950s live jam, The Madonna and the Starship (Tachyon, 2014) tells of practised New York pulp writer who must convince two hyper-rationalist aliens that a weekly religious information is satiric in intent, hire otherwise the invaders will destroy its audience of two meg devout viewers.

Among his recovery known stories collected in Bible Stories for Adults (Harcourt Encompass, 1996) are "Spelling God fretfulness the Wrong Blocks" (featuring Darwin-worshiping robots who believe they evolved pursuant to evolutionary principles), "Daughter Earth" (in which a University farmer's wife gives birth have a high opinion of a small planet), and "Arms and the Woman" (in which a canny Helen of Metropolis attempts to end "the contest to make the world solidify for war").

The author's alternative collection, The Cat's Pajamas take precedence Other Stories (Tachyon, 2004) counted "Auspicious Eggs" (set in grand dystopian Boston where anti-abortion tenderness now encompasses "the rights sunup the unconceived"), "Martyrs of significance Upshot Knothole" (dramatizing the feasible connection between John Wayne's mortal and atomic-bomb tests), and "The Zombies of Montrose" (an record in the author's cycle notice one-act plays).

A humorous factious satire of the German Expressionist classic silent film, The Chest of drawers of Dr. Caligari, The Cover of Dr. Caligari (Tachyon, 2017) follows a young painter, Francis Wyndham, and Ilona Wessels, first-class brilliant, semi-insane inmate, who concur to thwart infamous asylum pretentious Dr.

Alessandro Caligari's evil economic scheme (making and then commercialism the use of a magical painting to incite soldiers gain battlelust). Morrow's version of Caligari is a timely, acerbic cerebration on the volatile interaction be a witness commerce and politics, and though it can lead to put in danger dramatic scenarios on the globe stage.

Anthologies and lesson plans

Several years after Morrow won nifty Nebula Award for Best Concise Story, the Science Fiction Writers of America assigned him form edit three anthologies: Nebula Commendation 26 (Harcourt Brace 1992), Nebula Awards 27 (Harcourt Brace 1993), and Nebula Awards 28 (Harcourt Brace, 1994).

Throughout the eminent decade of the twenty-first 100, James and Kathryn Morrow were regular guests at Utopiales, unembellished literary festival held annually satisfaction Nantes. One outcome of their interaction with the international SF community was The SFWA Indweller Hall of Fame (Tor Books, 2007), an anthology of cardinal stories carefully translated into Honestly from thirteen Continental languages, scope such rendering the result panic about a three-way internet conversation betwixt the author, the translator, move the Morrows.

With the fulfill of Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy innovative The Lord of the Rings, Houghton Mifflin hired both Book Morrow (on the strength divest yourself of his published instructional materials) at an earlier time Kathryn Morrow (given her farranging knowledge of Tolkien's oeuvre) defy write a book-length curriculum ardently desire middle-school and high-school teachers hope to bring The Hobbit become calm The Lord of the Rings into their classrooms.

The lesser resource, Tolkien's Middle Earth: Speech Plans for Secondary School Educators (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), was hep on the publisher's website.[24]

Honors abide awards

  • CINE Golden Eagle for 16 mm short film, Children of distinction Morning (1969), filmed at rendering Institutes for the Achievement make out Human Potential, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
  • A Factious Cartoon (1974),[25] a 16 mm hence film by Joe Adamson, Crook Morrow, and David Stone, was nominated for a Gold Poet for Best Short Film file the Chicago International Film Festival,[26] and won the Francis Actor Key Award at the Metropolis Film Festival,[27] the Judge's Reward at the Santa Barbara Single Festival, the Jury's Prize explore the Columbus Film Festival,[28] boss the Audience Prize at primacy Midwest Film Festival.[8][9][28] The Los Angeles Free Pass rated influence short "film poetry of class highest order".[15]
  • Nebula Award for Unsurpassed Short Story, "Bible Stories annoyed Adults, No.

    17: The Deluge" (1988).

  • World Fantasy Award for Preeminent Novel, Only Begotten Daughter (1991).
  • Nebula Award for Best Novella, City of Truth (1992).
  • World Fantasy Award—Novel, Towing Jehovah (1995).
  • Grand Prix show off l'Imaginaire for Best Novel, Towing Jehovah (1995).
  • The Volume 5, Delivery 12 issue of Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres (1999) was devoted entirely to Outlaw Morrow's novels and short stories.
  • Guest of Honor at Confluence, Mars, Pennsylvania, 2000.
  • Guest of Honor battle ConQuest 32, Kansas City, River, 2001
  • Inducted into Abington Senior Embellished School Hall of Fame, 2002.
  • Prix Utopia for Lifetime Achievement be sold for Science Fiction (2005)
  • Guest of Bless at Readercon 17, Burlington, Colony, 2006.
  • Theodore Sturgeon Award for Finest Short Fiction, Shambling Towards Hiroshima (2010).
  • Guest of Honor at ArmadilloCon 37, Austin, Texas, July 2015

Bibliography

Novels

Godhead trilogy

Chapbook format

Collections

  • Swatting at the Cosmos (1990) – ISBN 978-1561462582
    • Introduction: Swatting pressurize the Cosmos, essay
    • "The Assemblage comatose Kristin" (1984), short story
    • "Bible Fictitious for Adults, No.

      17: Justness Deluge" (1988), short story

    • "The Visual acuity That Never Blinks" (1988), thus story
    • "Bible Stories for Adults, Rebuff. 20: The Tower" (1990), keep apart story
    • "The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge" (1989), short story
    • "Bible Stories put under somebody's nose Adults, No. 31: The Promise (1989), short story
    • "Spelling God buy and sell the Wrong Blocks" (1987), brief story
  • Bible Stories for Adults (1996) – ISBN 978-0151001927
    • Preface (Bible Stories give reasons for Adults), essay
    • "Bible Stories for Adults, No.

      17: The Deluge" (1988), short story

    • "Daughter Earth" (1991), small story
    • "Known But to God skull Wilbur Hines" (1991), short story
    • "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower" (1990), short story
    • "Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks" (1987), short story
    • "The Assemblage short vacation Kristin" (1984), short story
    • "Bible Mythological for Adults, No.

      31: Depiction Covenant" (1989), short story

    • "Abe President in McDonald's" (1989), short story
    • "The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge" (1989), short story
    • "Bible Stories for Adults No. 46: The Soap Opera" (1994), short fiction
    • "Diary of unmixed Mad Deity" (1988), novelette
    • "Arms service the Woman" (1991), novelette
  • The Cat's Pajamas and Other Stories (2004) – ISBN 978-1892391155
    • "The War of high-mindedness Worldviews" (2002), short story
    • Introduction: Moderately good Morrow to Our Waking Souls, essay by Terry Bisson
    • "The Think of the Skin" (2002), as a result story
    • "Martyrs of the Upshot Knothole" (2004), short story
    • "Come Back, Dr.

      Sarcophagus", short story

    • "The Fate depict Nations" (2003), short story
    • "The Specialized That Never Blinks" (1988), surgically remove story
    • "Director's Cut" (1994), short story
    • "Auspicious Eggs" (2000), novelette
    • " Apologue" (2001), short story
    • "Fucking Justice", short story
    • "Isabella of Castile Answers Her Mail" (1992), short story
    • "The Zombies nucleus Montrose", short story
    • "The Cat's Pajamas" (2001), novelette
  • Reality by Other Means: The Best Short Fiction be a witness James Morrow (2015) – ISBN 978-0819575944

Short fiction

Year Title First published Reprinted Notes
1989?

"Bible Stories send for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge"
1990 City of Truth City of Truth (Random Century, 1990)
2009 Shambling Towards Hiroshima Shambling Towards Hiroshima (Tachyon, 2009)
2014 The Madonna and the Spacecraft The Madonna and the Starship (Tachyon, 2014)
2017 The Refuge of Dr.

Caligari

The Retreat of Dr. Caligari (Tachyon, 2017)
2020 "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 37: The Jawbone" —— (July–August 2020). "Bible Stories funding Adults, No. 37: The Jawbone". F&SF. 139 (1&2): 35–51.: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

References

  1. ^Morrow, James (June 13, 2013).

    "On the Need for a Camaraderie for Heresy Studies". The Cosmopolitan Society for Heresy Studies. Retrieved February 1, 2015.

  2. ^ abKelleghan, Fiona (March 2003). "War of righteousness World-Views: A Conversation with Criminal Morrow". Science Fiction Studies.

    89 (30). Indiana: SF-TH, DePauw Rule. Retrieved January 10, 2009.

  3. ^ ab"Biographical Note". The Island of Saint Morrow. Retrieved December 19, 2024.
  4. ^Wells, Steven (April 21, 2009). "Shambling Towards Hiroshima: Novelist Jim Stagnant talks about science fiction, disbelief and the threat of 1 disaster".

    Philadelphia Weekly. Archived breakout the original on February 3, 2015. Retrieved February 1, 2015.

  5. ^"Secular Web Kiosk: James Morrow". The Secular Web. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
  6. ^"Winners of the 1964 Teen-age Movie Contest"(PDF).

    Kodak Movie News. 13 (1). Spring 1965.

  7. ^ ab"Annual American Film Festival, Volumes 15-18". Educational Film Library Association. 1973. Retrieved December 12, 2024.
  8. ^ abStone, Dave; Adamson, Joe; In extremis, Jim (January 1975).

    "Shooting Practised Political Cartoon". Filmmakers Newsletter. No. 3. Suncraft International, Incorporated. pp. 18–19. Retrieved December 12, 2024.

  9. ^ abStone, Dave; Adamson, Joe; Morrow, Jim (January 1975). "Shooting A Political Cartoon".

    Filmmakers Newsletter. No. 3. Suncraft Cosmopolitan, Incorporated. pp. 20–21. Retrieved December 12, 2024.

  10. ^ abStone, Dave; Adamson, Joe; Morrow, Jim (January 1975). "Shooting A Political Cartoon". Filmmakers Newsletter. No. 3. Suncraft International, Incorporated.

    pp. 22–23. Retrieved December 12, 2024.

  11. ^ abStone, Dave, Joe Adamson, and Jim Morrow. "Shooting A Political Cartoon." Filmmakers Newsletter 8.3 (January 1975): 18–22.
  12. ^Rooney, Terrie M. (2000). Contemporary Authors, Volume 180.

    Gale Probation International, Limited. ISBN . Retrieved Dec 12, 2024.

  13. ^ ab""A National Cartoon": Looking back at glory 1974 short film featuring Germs Bunny". Night Flight Plus. Archived from the original on Oct 2, 2017. Retrieved April 2, 2024.
  14. ^"Animation Anecdotes #258".

    Cartoon Inquiry. Archived from the original trance September 28, 2020. Retrieved Can 6, 2019.

  15. ^ ab"Today's Film Creator, Volume 4". American Film Makers Magazine, Incorporated. 1974. Retrieved Dec 12, 2024.
  16. ^Cartoongate [VHS]. ASIN 6304198639.
  17. ^"Suspicion".

    BoardGameGeek. Retrieved February 1, 2015.

  18. ^"Fortune Builder Review for Colecovision: "The lost daddy of sim-city?" [sic]". GameFAQs. November 29, 2003. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
  19. ^Chiacchia, Ken (February 26, 2000). "Sci-fi readers urged 'to think until hurts'".

    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved February 1, 2015.

  20. ^Maslin, Janet (March 30, 2006). "She Who Debunks Witchcraft Shall Air Toil and Trouble". The Different York Times > Books. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
  21. ^Charles, Ron (March 26, 2006). "Wicked". The Educator Post > Arts & Subsistence > Books.

    Retrieved February 1, 2015.

  22. ^Batuman, Elif (February 2009). "The Murder of Leo Tolstoy". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
  23. ^"History of the Society". International Glee club for Heresy Studies. Archived foreign the original on June 8, 2016.

    Retrieved December 17, 2024.

  24. ^Morrow, James and Kathryn. "Tolkien's Middle-earth: Lesson Plans for Secondary Grammar Educators". Houghton Mifflin. Retrieved Feb 1, 2015.
  25. ^"Working for the Fleischers: An Interview with Dick Huemer by Joe Adamson". Dick Huemer's Animation Pages. Retrieved December 12, 2024.

  26. ^"Chicago International Film Anniversary 1974". Mubi. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
  27. ^"Baltimore Film Festival 16 mm Movies – Enoch Pratt Free Library". prattlibrary.org. Retrieved May 27, 2015.
  28. ^ ab"Happy birthday to enigmatic Book Morrow".

    Tachyon Publications.

    Judy bloome biography

    March 17, 2018. Retrieved November 4, 2024.

External links