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Steve Almond

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Steve Almond
Steve Almond in 2009
Steve Almond in 2009
BornOctober 27, 1966 (1966-10-27) (age 58)
California, United States
OccupationWriter, essayist
NationalityAmerican
Website
stevealmondjoy.org

Steve Almond (born October 27, 1966)[1] is an American short-story writer, essayist[2] and author of ten books, three of which are self-published.[3]

Life

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Almond was raised in Palo Alto, California, graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School and received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University. He spent seven years as a newspaper reporter, mostly in El Paso and at the Miami New Times.[4]

Almond lives in Arlington, Massachusetts with his wife and three children.

Literary work

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Almond's 2014 book Against Football, which documents his growing disillusionment with American football, derived from two pieces written for The New York Times.[5][6] Almond's second book, Candyfreak (2005) was a New York Times Best Seller and won the American Library Association Alex Award and was named the Booksense Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year.

Almond's books have been published in half a dozen foreign countries and translated into German, Dutch, Spanish, and Croatian. He has published more than 150 stories in magazines such as Tin House, Playboy, Zoetrope, and Ploughshares. His story "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched" was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2010 and has been optioned for film by Spilt Milk Entertainment.[7][8]

Two of his stories were published in The Pushcart Prize. His essays and journalism have appeared in venues such as The New York Times Magazine, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, Poets & Writers, and Real Simple. His stories and essays have appeared in dozens of anthologies. Almond also reviews books for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. He regularly teaches at GrubStreet in Boston, at the Sanibel Writer's Conference, and the Tin House Writer's Conference.

Teaching

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Almond teaches non-fiction to fellows in the Nieman Fellowship program, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[9]

Political activities

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Almond served as adjunct professor in creative writing at Boston College for five years until publishing an open letter of resignation in The Boston Globe on May 12, 2006, in which he explained that his resignation was intended to protest the selection of Condoleezza Rice as the college's 2006 commencement guest speaker. He later appeared on the Hannity & Colmes show on Fox News to discuss his decision. Almond is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine's Riff section, and to the literary website The Rumpus, where he writes frequently about the intersection of morality and politics titled "The Week in Greed."[10] Almond's January 2023 interview with Laura Ingraham in support of Against Football abruptly ended after he made an unwelcome comparison between the economic pressure on Fox that forced Ingraham to apologize for a tasteless tweet to the economic pressure needed on owners to make professional football safer for players. [11]

Self-publishing

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After a decade of working with traditional publishers, Almond has self-published three books in recent years and become an outspoken advocate of self-publishing, which he has written about extensively in the Los Angeles Times,[12] Poets & Writers, and The Rumpus.[13]

Almond was a contributing writer to Alarm Clock Theatre Company's Elliot Norton Award-winning play PS Page Me Later based on selections from Found Magazine.

Radio and podcast

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Almond is a regular correspondent on NPR's Here & Now and on WGBH, both based in Boston. On October 27, 2011, Almond appeared as a guest on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron.[14] Almond also hosted a live interview podcast series with Hallelujah the Hills band leader Ryan Walsh entitled "This Has Been A Disaster – Thanks For Having Us."[15] Almond co-hosted the Dear Sugars podcast for four years with Cheryl Strayed.[16]

Bibliography

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Short stories

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Nonfiction

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Fiction

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  • All the Secrets of the World, (Zando, 2022)

Coauthor

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References

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  1. ^ Almond, Steve (2007). Not That You Asked. pp. 107–7. ISBN 9781400066193.
  2. ^ Almond, Steve (October 23, 2005). "Confessions of a playboy". Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ "The Decade of Magical Thinking". The Rumpus.net. September 9, 2011.
  4. ^ "Steven Almond | Miami New Times | the Leading Independent News Source in Miami, Florida".
  5. ^ Almond, Steve (January 24, 2014). "Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl?". The New York Times.
  6. ^ Almond, Steve (August 24, 2012). "Why Does Anyone Root for Incompetent, Failing Teams?". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Peschel, Joseph. "Year's best stories have staying power". Boston.com – via The Boston Globe.
  8. ^ "10/10/10: The 10 best 'Best of' books of 2010". October 10, 2010.
  9. ^ "Niemanstoryboard.org". Archived from the original on August 5, 2014.
  10. ^ "THE WEEK IN GREED #6: To Behave Like the Fallen World". The Rumpus.net. May 11, 2012.
  11. ^ Kaonga, Gerrard (January 5, 2023). "Laura Ingraham Abruptly Ends Interview After Being Called Out by Guest". Newsweek. Retrieved January 5, 2023. Laura Ingraham quickly ended an interview on her show with activist and author Steve Almond after he raised a sensitive issue for the presenter
  12. ^ Los Angeles Times
  13. ^ "Presto Book-O (Why I Went Ahead and Self-Published)". The Rumpus.net. February 10, 2010.
  14. ^ "WTF with Marc Maron Podcast". wtfpod.libsyn.com.
  15. ^ ""This Has Been A Disaster" on NPR" – via www.youtube.com.
  16. ^ "The Long Goodbye". The New York Times. September 4, 2018. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 31, 2019.
  17. ^ "How To Always Win When Betting On Football?". November 10, 2021.
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