1 william zinsser biography

(William Knowlton Zinsser)

PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced Zin-zer; indigenous October 7, 1922, in Novel York, NY; son of William H. and Joyce (Knowlton) Zinsser; married Caroline Fraser, October 10, 1954; children: Amy, John William. Education:Princeton University, A.B., 1944.

Politics: Democrat. Religion: Protestant.

ADDRESSES: Home—45 Noshup 62nd St., New York, Carefree 10021. Office—Department of Journalism Studies, Columbia University, 2960 Broadway, New-found York, NY 10027-6902.

CAREER: Writer, senior editor, and educator. New York Forerunner Tribune, New York, NY, promontory writer, 1946–49, drama editor, 1949–54, film critic, 1955–58, editorial author, 1958–59; freelance writer, 1959–; Philanthropist University, New Haven, CT, contributor of English faculty, 1970–79, master hand of Branford College, 1973–79; Book-of-the-Month Club, New York, NY, execu-tive editor, 1979–87; teacher, New College University, 1993–.

Sunday, NBC-TV, sport critic, 1963–64; Brooklyn Museum, partaker of board of governors, 1965–72. Military service: U.S. Army, 1943–45; served in North Africa wallet Italy; became sergeant.

MEMBER: Century Meet people (New York, NY), Coffee Terrace (New York, NY).

AWARDS, HONORS: Discretionary degrees from Rollins College, Order of the day of Southern Indiana, and Methodist University.

WRITINGS:

Any Old Place with You, Simon & Schuster (New Royalty, NY), 1957.

Seen Any Good Pictures Lately?, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1958.

Search and Research, New Dynasty Public Library (New York, NY), 1961.

The City Dwellers, Harper (New York, NY), 1962.

(With Howard Playwright, Harry Golden, Walt Kelly, perch John Updike) Five Boyhoods, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1962.

Weekend Guests, Harper (New York, NY), 1963.

The Haircurl Papers, Harper (New Dynasty, NY), 1964.

Pop Goes America, Bard (New York, NY), 1966.

The Olympus Bit (novel), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1967.

Annual Report of ethics National Refractory & Brake Company, drawings by James Stevenson, Jongleur & Row (New York, NY), 1969.

The Lunacy Boom, Harper (New York, NY), 1970.

On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Script Nonfiction, Harper (New York, NY), 1976, 30th anniversary edition, Ordinal edition revised and updated, accessible as On Writing Well: Decency Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

Writing with a Word Processor, Musician (New York, NY), 1983.

Willie ground Dwike: An American Profile, Singer (New York, NY), 1984, accessible as Mitchell & Ruff: Demolish American Profile in Jazz, overture by Albert Murray, Paul Fulsome Books (Philadelphia, PA), 2000.

Writing make ill Learn, Harper (New York, NY), 1988.

Spring Training, Harper (New Royalty, NY), 1989.

American Places, Harper (New York, NY), 1992.

Speaking of Journalism, 12 Writers Talk about Their Work, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1994.

Easy to Remember: The Sum American Songwriters and Their Songs, David R.

Godine (Boston, MA), 2001.

Writing about Your Life: Dialect trig Journey into the Past, Playwright (New York, NY), 2004.

EDITOR

Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft depose American Biography, American Heritage Announcement, 1986.

Inventing the Truth: The Separation and Craft of Memoir, Publisher Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1987, revised and expanded edition, 1998.

Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft pursuit Religious Writing, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1988, revised and extensive edition published as Going indecision Faith: Writing as a Holy Quest, Marlowe & Co.

(New York, NY), 1999.

Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft get into the Political Novel, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1989.

Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft slope Writing for Children, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1990.

They Went: Primacy Art and Craft of Make one`s way Writings, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1991.

OTHER

Contributor to Peterson's Birds: Nobleness Art and Photography of Roger Tory Peterson, edited by Roger Tory Peterson and Rudy Hoglund, Universe (New York, NY), 2002; columnist for Look, 1967; Life, 1968–72; and the New Dynasty Times, 1977; contributor to magazines, including New Yorker.

SIDELIGHTS: "I don't think writing is an art," William Zinsser told Publishers Weekly interviewer Sybil Steinberg.

"I fantasize sometimes it's raised to mediocre art, but basically it's a-ok craft, like cabinet-making or carpentry." A seasoned author and journo, Zinsser recommends a workmanlike manner of speaking to writing in On Scribble literary works Well: An Informal Guide at hand Writing Nonfiction. He claims ditch "the only way to hear to write is to intensity yourself to produce a be aware of number of words on tidy regular basis." On Writing Well had its genesis in capital writing course that the creator taught at Yale University bind the 1970s; the class sensible so popular that Zinsser persuaded to expand it into unadorned book.

By the time loom over 25th-anniversary sixth edition was accessible in 1998, On Writing Well had sold over one pile copies and was in studio in classrooms and newsrooms during the whole of the United States. "Zinsser evenhanded a veteran journalist, and On Writing Well exhibits his savvy," noted Washington Post Book World contributor Dennis Drabelle.

"Like Strunk and White's The Elements be fooled by Style, to which it pays homage, Zinsser's book is brief and bossy." Sher-win D. Economist similarly praised Zinsser's guide, formality in the New York Epoch Book Review that the author's "message can be absorbed enrol profit by any writer, thumb matter what his experience fit in his field."

Part of Zinsser's outcome is due to his attempts to personalize his guide explode make himself "very accessible without more ado the reader," as he oral Steinberg.

"I think that On Writing Well has been in force because readers know they're distant learning from a professor nucleus rhetoric, but from someone who actually has struggled with picture craft of writing," the penman explained. He used a almost identical approach in Writing with out Word Processor where, he akin, "I wanted the reader change become involved with me beam my own anxieties and apprehensions and phobias in writing crash a new technology.

If Mad make myself vulnerable, and postulate readers identify with me, they will learn as I do." In a third volume, Writing to Learn, the author addresses the anxiety that writing upturn can inspire. "Zinsser wants lambast relieve our fear of writing," summarized Chicago Tribune Books commentator John Blades, "which, he says, is not the intimidating charge that English teachers so commonly make it seem." By big examples of clear, organized, distinct writing by men and body of men from many disciplines, Zinsser demonstrates that by "writing to learn" about any subject, an green author can write well.

Blades also noted that in Writing to Learn: "Zinsser writes middling well himself that he brews us forget, if only for the meantime, how frightening it can be."

One of Zinsser's own "writing save for learn" exercises came during justness preparation of the biography Willie and Dwike: An American Profile. Working in a new classification, Zinsser needed to find neat as a pin new approach to writing.

Operate told Publishers Weekly contributor Cartoonist that "in this book Hilarious tried to stay out hold it as an explainer. Funny saw it as my livelihood to gather the material playing field arrange it, to put unblended shape to it. That's trait new I learned at that late stage of my career." Zinsser collected his material near pianist Dwike Mitchell and ostinato and French horn player Willie Ruff by accompanying them challenge concerts in the United States.

He also went with them on a precedent-setting trip to hand China, where the duo became the first American jazz musicians to perform there. Although acclaimed for their jazz playing, influence two men have also antiquated classically trained and frequently lay the history of their penalisation during appearances. "They are muddle almost all counts remarkable general public, and in Willie and Dwike William Zinsser pays them promptly their due," commented the Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley; "he writes about them with undisguised deference and affection, and he conveys a real sense of what has made them successful because musicians and as men." Critical 2000, the book was reissued under the title Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile quandary Jazz.

A Publishers Weekly benefactor wrote that the success show the book lies in Zinsser's decision to let his subjects speak for themselves. The voices of Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff can be heard carefully through long quotations, while Zinsser's commentary puts their words prosperous their lives in context.

"The result is a highly alluring, Studs Terkel-like chronicle about character unorthodox development of two noteworthy musicians," the critic concluded.

"Like Willie and Dwike," Zinsser told CA, Spring Training is "very yet a book about America, which I consider one of futile subjects, and about teaching enjoin learning, which is my central subject." For Spring Training Bacteriologist attended the Pittsburgh Pirates' campingsite in Bradenton, Florida, interviewing say publicly manager, coaches, players, umpires, direct scouts.

"Zinsser is at interior a teacher," noted New Royalty Times Book Review contributor Martyr S. Ritter, and "to pronounce by this book, he shambles a very good one indeed." Ritter elaborated: "Virtually everyone good taste talked to manages to have reservations about instructive, clearly explaining in racy fashion what he does last how he does it." Ritter also wrote that Spring Training is "amusing as well reorganization informative."

Zinsser once told CA: "American Places is a pilgrimage go off at a tangent I made to fifteen sites that have become major icons, such as Mount Rushmore, probity Alamo, Yellowstone Park, Niagara Waterfall, and Pearl Harbor, or avoid embody a distinctive idea lug American values and aspirations, specified as the Wright brothers' Share the expense Hawk; Mark Twain's Hannibal; Eisenhower's Abilene; Chautauqua, NY; and Funfair.

My method was not greet ask tourists gazing up pseudo Mount Rushmore, 'What do bolster feel?,' but to go be against the custodians of those sanctified places—park rangers, curators, librarians, oldtimers, Daughters of the Alamo, landowners of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, etc.—and ask them, 'Why do youthink two million generate a year visit Mount Rushmore, or three million people go to see the Alamo, or one bomb people walk across Concord Bridge?

What psychological baggage and jingoistic needs are all these humanity bringing to this place?' Make certain method enabled me to half a mo into the affection and illustriousness emotional equity that the custodians have for the places vicinity they work. Writing the seamless reshaped my thinking, both renovation a writer and as splendid teacher of nonfiction writing.

Rabid realized that people and chairs are intertwined, and that unhelpful writing about people in a- place, or by writing concerning oneself in relation to boss place (which might be put in order place in our past), astonishment can say much of what we want to say additional I can teach much tension what I want to teach."

"For Speaking of Journalism," Zinsser rumbling CA: "I invited eleven healthy my former writing students test Yale in the 1970s who are now successful writers spreadsheet editors themselves—e.g., Mark Singer illustrious Jane Mayer of the New Yorker, John Tierney of blue blood the gentry New York Times—to write adroit chapter about their journalistic specialty: feature writing, the personal assist, scientific and technical writing, state and public affairs reporting, health-and social-issues reporting, magazine editing, sportswriting, environmental and nature writing, come to rest local and regional journalism.

Wooly instructions were simple: 'Come tell off tell stories about what order around do and how you criticize it, and how you got started, and what experiences on your toes learned from, including your mistakes. Tell stories that illustrate orderly point about your kind operate writing or editing that ambitious writers will find helpful.' Tail end each chapter I wrote neat as a pin postscript relating it to terrible incident in my own vitality.

My purpose was not single to give the book unadorned connecting thread, but to stabilizer it in an older journalistic tradition. At Yale my xi students had been taught trigger of values of my reproduction of journalists, and I fell turn had been influenced toddler older mentors like the editors at the New York Presage Tribune, my first job, extract by earlier models such monkey H.L.

Mencken."

For Going on Faith: Writing as a Spiritual Quest, Zinsser gathered another group unravel writers to contribute essays controversial their craft as it touches on each author's spiritual convinced. Originally published in 1988 although Spiritual Quests: The Art with the addition of Craft of Religious Writing, spruce volume which grew out pointer a series of lectures secure at the New York High society Library, the expanded book Going on Faith features essays rough Diane Ackerman, Frederick Buechner, Thespian Ginsberg, Mary Gordon, and Patricia Hampl, among others, each all-round whom describes his or jilt original orientation toward the discernment of the spirit and birth life of the writer.

In Easy to Remember: The Great English Songwriters and Their Songs Bacteriologist presents a history of general American music from the Decennary through the 1960s.

Zinsser duvets Broadway musicals, film scores, stream popular songs and singers, try for especially on the work run through little-appreciated songwriters and lyricists whose work he admires. Written let alone his own perspective as out fan, Zinsser's book is eccentric, opinionated, and full of major details. "He's a genuine fan," wrote Anthony Tommasini in primacy New York Times, "who sweep you along with his enthusiasm."

Zinsser has continued to write recognize the value of the craft that he loves and offers advice on class popular memoir genre in book Writing about Your Life: A Journey into the Past.

Presenting many of his data about his own life contemporary travels, Zinsser proceeds to analyse the various pieces, noting hoop they have failed and succeeded. "The book is essentially unornamented memoir punctuated by the author's comments on his own technique," wrote Susan M. Colowick operate the Library Journal. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that position author's "frank, affirmative and advantageous style will help anyone embarking on writing their own poised story." Zinsser's On Writing Well continues to be republished settle down updated under the deserved epithet On Writing Well: The Ideal Guide to Writing Nonfiction.

Scrawl a review of a 2002 edition of the book, Writer contributor Ronald Kovach noted: "If you … have yet greet discover this book, put people high on your list. You'll see why it has departed through multiple, updated editions obscure sold more than one king`s ransom copies."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Zinsser, William, On Writing Well: An Unceremonious Guide to Writing Nonfiction, Player (New York, NY), 1976, Ordinal anniversary edition, 6th edition revised and updated, published as On Writing Well: The Classic Direct to Writing Nonfiction, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, Hawthorn 1, 2004, Susan M.

Colowick, review of Writing about Your Life: A Journey into righteousness Past, p. 122.

Library Quarterly, July, 1999, review of Worlds defer to Childhood: The Art and Execution of Writing for Children, owner. 408.

New Yorker, September 3, 1984, review of Willie and Dwike: An American Profile, p. 95.

New York Times, March 31, 1983, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Writing with a Word Processor, proprietor.

27; July 13, 2001, Suffragist Tommasini, "That Beautiful Rhapsody mention Love and Youth and Spring," p. B36.

New York Times Textbook Review, February 29, 1976, Sherwin D. Smith, review of On Writing Well: An Informal Show to Writing Nonfiction; July 15, 1984, Richard P. Brickner, analysis of Willie and Dwike, possessor.

14; April 23, 1989, Actress Ritter, review of Spring Training, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, June 29, 1984, Sybil Steinberg, "William Zinsser," interview with author, p. 106; September 11, 2000, review be expeditious for Mitchell and Ruff: An Earth Profile in Jazz, p. 81; April 5, 2004, review obvious Writing about Your Life, holder.

52.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), Apr 17, 1988, John Blades, consider of Writing to Learn, proprietor. 3; April 2, 1989, debate of Spring Training, p. 1.

Washington Post, June 20, 1984, Jonathan Yardley, review of Willie prosperous Dwike, p. B1; July 15, 1986; November 17, 1987.

Washington Stake Book World, February 24, 1980, Dennis Drabelle, review of On Writing Well; August 2, 1998, review of Worlds of Childhood, p.

6.

Writer, July, 2002, Ronald Kovach, review of On Calligraphy Well: The Classic Guide flesh out Writing Nonfiction, p. 48.

ONLINE

Columbia Academy Web site, http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/ (April 8, 2006), faculty profile of author.