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Dan Wakefield on Kurt Vonnegut: The Making of a Writer: Young Adult Fiction

Dan Wakefield on Kurt Vonnegut: The Making of a Writer: Young Adult Fiction

Author:
Wakefield, Dan, Book, Ellen
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This first and only YA biography of the great American novelist and humanist comes out on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle, and many other brilliant novels and short stories, is one of our greatest American writers. Born in 1922, Vonnegut’s life was full of great fortune and great despair: his family was wealthy, but lost everything in the market crash of 1929; he was the youngest son in a loving family, until his mother fell into a depression and committed suicide; he joined the army in WWII with great pride for our country, but experienced instead a world of destruction and horror. How did he channel the highs and lows of his life into great writing? Dan Wakefield, a friend and mentee of Vonnegut’s for decades, distills the facts – including Vonnegut’s novels, essays, interviews, letters, and personal experiences – into a beautiful telling of the making of a writer. It is as though Wakefield is a friend walking through Vonnegut’s life alongside him, a guide for readers to his extraordinary life. Here is a burgeoning artist’s life to inspire anyone who has read Vonnegut’s work or who themselves aspire to write. Moderated by Ellen Book, branch manager with the Miami-Dade Public Library System. Grades 9-12

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Wakefield, Dan

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Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. His bestselling novels Going All The Way and Starting Over were adapted into feature films, and his memoir New York in the Fifties became a documentary film. He has served as a sports correspondent and writer for several magazines and newspapers, including Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine. Wakefield, a Hoosier, began his writing career as a columnist for his high school newspaper, The Shortridge Daily Echo. Kurt Vonnegut had graduated from Shortridge High a few years earlier. The two didn’t know each other at the time, but they eventually met and became lifelong friends. Vonnegut’s life was marked by great fortune and tragedy: his family was wealthy but lost everything in the market crash of 1929; he was the youngest son in a loving family until his mother fell into a depression and committed suicide; he joined the army in WWII with great pride for his country but experienced a world of destruction and horror. Kurt Vonnegut: The Making of a Writer (Triangle Square) distills the facts – filtered through his novels, essays, interviews, letters, and personal experiences – into the telling of the making of one of the greatest American writers.

Book, Ellen

From age 12, libraries were Ellen Book’s destiny. The Miami-Dade Public Library System hired her in 1987 as a business and science specialist before she ascended into branch management. Volunteer efforts include Dade County Library Association president 2010-2012, South Miami Rotary Club president 2005-2006, and assistant district governor 2007-2009. She coordinated 27,000 dictionary giveaways from 2007-2015, delivering them countywide at student assemblies. The city of South Miami proclaimed May 2, 2006, as “Ellen Book Day,” the League of Women Voters named her 2014 Community Activist of the Year, and she was profiled in Community News’ 2021 Women’s History Month issue.

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