David Shields

Location Seattle
Occupation Writer/Professor
Website http://www.davidshields.com
IM () N/A

About Me

I'm the author of ten books, including Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, forthcoming from Knopf in January 2010; The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, a New York Times bestseller that was published by Knopf last year and is now available as a Vintage paperback; Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award; Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity, winner of the PEN/Revson Award; and Dead Languages: A Novel, winner of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. My essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, Believer, and McSweeney's. I live with my wife and daughter in Seattle, where I'm a professor in the English department at the University of Washington. I also teach in the Warren Wilson College low-residency MFA program.

Why do you write?

What fuels my creativity? I stuttered badly as a child and still stutter slightly now. I write in order to communicate.

Any favorite authors? Books?

David Markson, Vanishing Point, This Is Not a Novel, The last Novel, Reader's Block.
J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello.
Simon Gray, The Smoking Diaries.
E.M. Cioran, The Temptation to Exist.
Blaise Pascal, Pensees.
Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave.
Leonard Michaels, Shuffle.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet.

David Shields's Wall

David Shields – Mar 30, 2009

Hi, Rachel, Dan, and David. Thanks.

Dn Ppnbrng – Mar 30, 2009

Excited to see you here. My former thesis advisor, a Warren Wilson alum, introduced me to your work -- I really enjoyed _A Handbook for Drowning_ and _Enough about You_. Best wishes.

Rachel Yoder – Mar 27, 2009

Hi David! You're on fictionaut! Wild. Hope all is well in Seattle.

David Erlewine – Mar 27, 2009

Welcome! I recognized your name!

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