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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Nationality:  American. Born: December 2, 1948, in Peekskill, NY;  Thomas John Boyle; Changed middle name to Coraghessan when he was 17. 

Education: Lakeland High School, Shrub Oak, NY, 1964; State University of New York at Potsdam, B.A. in English and History, 1968; University of Iowa, Iowa City,  M.F.A. in Fiction 1974;  Ph.D. in British Literature, 1977. 

Family: Married Karen Kvashay, 1974; one daughter, Kerrie, and two sons, Milo and Spencer. 

Career: Taught for four years following college gradauation at his high school alma mater prior to being accepted at Iowa.  Served as fiction editor for the Iowa Review and in 1977 received a Creative Writing Fellowship from The National Endowment for the Arts.  Assistant Professor, 1978-82; Associate Professor, 1982-86; and since 1986 Professor of English, University of Southern California. 

Awards: Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines award, 1977, for fiction; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1977; St. Lawrence award, 1980, for Descent of Man;Paris Review's  Aga Khan Prize, 1981, for fiction; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1983 ("Water Music"); Paris Review , John Train prize, 1984, for humor; Commonwealth Club of California, silver medal for literature, 1986, for Greasy Lake; Editors' Choice, NY Times Book Review 1987; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1988; PEN/Faulkner Award, 1988, for World's End,  Commonwealth Club of California clubgold medal, 1988. for World's End; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1988;  PEN/Faulkner Novel of the Year award, 1988, for World's End;  O. Henry Award, 1988, for "Sinking House,"  1989, for "The Ape Lady in reirement;" Prix Passion novel of the year, 1989, for Water Music;  PEN Center West  Literary prize, 1989; Editors' Choice New York Times 1989; Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree, 1991,  State  University NY;  National Academy of Arts  and Letters;  Howard D. Vursell Memorial Award, 1993, National Academy of Arts amd Letters, 1993; Best Americaan canor prose excellence, D.H.L.:  State University of New york, 1991.  .His first volume of short fiction, Descent of Man and Other Stories, was published in 1979.   After leaving Iowa he was recruited by the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where he established the Creative Writing program;  he currently teaches there. 

Member:  Literature panel, National Endowment for the Arts, 1986-87. 

Agent:  Georges Borchardt, 136 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022. 
 

Adams, Michael.  "T. Coraghessan Boyle."  Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook 1986: 281.  The Gale Group, 1987.

"T. Coraghessan Boyle." Contemporary Literary Criticism. The Gale Group, Volume 36, 1986; Volume 59, 1989. 

"T. Coraghessan Boyle."  Contempory Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2000. 

"T. Coraghessan Boyle."  The Oxford Companion to Contemporary Literature.  Oxford University Press, 1995.  

"T. Coraghessan Boyle." Short Story Criticism, Vol. 16: 139-158.  The Gale Group.
 
 

See also Interviews Page and Non-Fiction Page





--Sandye Utley, Cincinnati, Ohio

Last Page Update:  29 April 2001