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Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin (born Kansas City, Missouri, December 5, 1935) is an American journalist, humorist, and novelist. He is perhaps known best for his writings about food and eating, but he has also written much serious journalism, comic verse, and several books of fiction.

Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and became a member of Scroll and Key before graduating in 1957. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he worked as a reporter for Time magazine before joining the staff of The New Yorker in 1963. His reporting for The New Yorker on the racial integration of the University of Georgia was published in his first book, An Education in Georgia. He wrote the magazine's "U.S. Journal" series from 1967 to 1982, covering local events both serious and quirky throughout the United States.

He has also written for The Nation magazine, contributing a column titled "Uncivil Liberties" from 1978 to 1985 and comic verse, mostly on political topics, since 1990.

Much of Trillin's nonfiction includes references to his life and family. The most autobiographical of his books is Messages from My Father.

Trillin lives in the Greenwich Village area of New York City.

Books

(Nonfiction unless otherwise noted)

  • An Education in Georgia: Charlayne Hunter, Hamilton Holmes, and the Integration of the University of Georgia (1964)
  • Barnett Frummer is an Unbloomed Flower (short stories, 1969),
  • U.S. Journal (1971)
  • American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater (1974)
  • Runestruck (novel, 1977)
  • Alice, Let's Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater (1978)
  • Floater (novel, 1980)
  • Uncivil Liberties (1982)
  • Third Helpings (1983)
  • Killings (1984)
  • With All Disrespect (1985)
  • If You Can't Say Something Nice (1987)
  • Travels with Alice (1989)
  • Enough's Enough (and Other Rules of Life) (1990)
  • American Stories (1991)
  • Remembering Denny (1993)
  • Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist (comic verse with commentary, 1994)
  • Tepper's Not Going Out (novel, 2001)
  • Feeding a Yen (2003)
  • Obliviously on He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme (comic verse with commentary, 2004)
Last updated: 08-18-2005 06:46:51