Audrey Niffenegger (born June 13, 1963) is an American writer, artist and academic. Her debut novel, '' The Time Traveler's Wife'', published in 2003, was a bestseller.

Biography

Audrey Niffenegger was born in 1963 in South Haven, Michigan. Then she moved to Evanston, Illinois and has since spent a majority of her life in Chicago. Niffenegger started writing books when she was six years old. Niffenegger completed her undergraduate degree at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

where she worked on becoming a visual artist. After completing her undergraduate degree, she got her M.F.A at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. Niffenegger is currently a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at

Columbia College Chicago Columbia College Chicago is a private art college in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, it has 5,928https://about.colum.edu/effectiveness/pdf/spring-2021-student-profile.pdf students pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergraduate and gradua ...

, where she co-founded the Columbia College Chicago Center for the Book and Paper Arts. Niffenegger is also the founding member of T3 or Text 3, an artist and writer's group which also performs and exhibits in Chicago. She is an alumna and board member of the Ragdale Foundation. She started making books herself by using processes such as intaglio and letterpress. She also wrote many novels which were produced on an offset press.

Novels

Niffenegger's

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, '' The Time Traveler's Wife'', was published in 2003 and was a bestseller. A

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dia ...

was released in 2009. Niffenegger has no intention of watching the movie because she stated that the characters are only truly hers in the book, not in the movie. Niffenegger originally conceptualized ''The Time Traveler's Wife'' as a graphic novel but realized that the time travel would be difficult to capture in visualizations. In March 2009, Niffenegger sold her second novel, a literary ghost story called '' Her Fearful Symmetry'', to

Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan R ...

for an advance of $5 million. The book was released on October 1, 2009 and is set in London's

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

where, during research for the book, Niffenegger acted as a tour guide. Though not as huge a commercial juggernaut as ''The Time Traveler's Wife,'' this book generally garnered more positive critical reviews and cinched Niffenegger's reputation as a leading novelist of ideas and atmosphere. Niffenegger collaborated with Wayne McGregor on a balletic fable, '' Raven Girl'' (2013), performed at the Royal Opera House in London in 2013, 2015. In 2009, she started working on a novel called ''The Chinchilla Girl in Exile''. As of 2022 it is announced that she is working on a sequel to ''The Time Traveler's Wife'' called ''The Other Husband''

Visual books

Niffenegger has degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University. As an undergraduate student at the Art Institute of Chicago, Niffenegger created her own book arts major combining etching, letterpress arts and bookbinding. Her first project was called ''The Adventuress'', which she self-described as "a novel In pictures". Niffenegger's second novel in pictures was titled ''The Three Incestuous Sisters'' which she created while completing her M.F.A. at Northwestern. These two novels in pictures were subsequently published by Harry N. Abrams. ''The Three Incestuous Sisters'' was published in 2005 and tells the story of three unusual sisters who live in a seaside house; the book has been compared to the work of

Edward Gorey Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an American writer, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for books by other writers. Hi ...

. ''The Adventuress'' was released on September 1, 2006. The 2004 short story "The Night Bookmobile" was serialized in 2008 in "Visual Novel" format in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

''. "The Night Bookmobile" was published on October 1, 2010, by Jonathan Cape. Niffenegger intends "The Night Bookmobile" to be the first installment in a series titled "The Library". She is working on the second installment, called "Moths of the New World", about a stolen book.

Personal life

Niffenegger is married to cartoonist

Eddie Campbell Eddie Campbell (born 10 August 1955) is a British comics artist and cartoonist who now lives in Chicago. Probably best known as the illustrator and publisher of ''From Hell'' (written by Alan Moore), Campbell is also the creator of the semi-au ...

. Niffenegger and Campbell collaborated on the visual novel ''Bizarre Romance'' to celebrate the Comics Unmasked exhibit at the British Library. Niffenegger describes herself as "somewhere in the spectrum of

agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficien ...

and

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

" and ascribes her disbelief to her

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

background.

Bibliography

Novels

* '' The Time Traveler's Wife'' (2003) * '' Her Fearful Symmetry'' (2009) * '' Raven Girl'' (2013) * ''

The Other Husband ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

'' (Coming Soon)

Short stories

* "Jakob Wywialowski and the Angels" (2004) * "Prudence: The Cautionary Tale of a Picky Eater" in the boo
''Poisonous Plants at Table''
(2006)

Comics

* ''The Night Bookmobile'' (2008) * ''Bizarre Romance'' (with

, Abrams, 2018)

Artist's books

Visual books: * ''The Adventuress'' (1985) * ''The Spinster'' (1986) * ''Aberrant Abecedarium'' (1986) * ''The Murderer''Audrey Niffenegger – biography, plus book reviews & excerpts
/ref> * ''Spring'' (1994) * ''The Three Incestuous Sisters'' (2005)

Non-fiction

* ''Awake in the Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger'' (2013), with

Susan Fisher Sterling Susan Fisher Sterling is an American art curator, currently the Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. She has been an activist in the Feminist art movement in the United States since the early 1980s. Education ...

and Mark Pascale

Anthologies

* ''Ghostly : A Collection of Ghost Stories'' (Scribner, 2015) An anthology selected and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger. She also wrote the introduction.

Books Foreworded by Niffenegger

* ''The Art of Neil Gaiman'' (with Hayley Campbell, Neil Gaiman) * ''Classic Penguin : Cover to Cover'' ( Paul Buckley) * ''Mr. Wrong : Real-Life Stories about the Men We Used to Love'' (Jacquelyn Mitchard, Harriet Brown, et al.)

Adaptations

* '' The Time Traveler's Wife'' (2009), film directed by

Robert Schwentke Robert Schwentke (; born 15 February 1968) is a German film director and screenwriter. Life and career Schwentke was born in Stuttgart, West Germany. He graduated from Los Angeles film school, Columbia College Hollywood (CCH), in 1992. His wife ...

, based on novel '' The Time Traveler's Wife'' * '' The Time Traveler's Wife'' (2022), series directed by David Nutter, based on novel ''The Time Traveler's Wife''

References

External links

*
Interview with Audrey Niffenegger, December 2008
*

Art gallery representing Audrey Niffenegger *
Interview with Writer Unboxed 3/06
about craft, the process of writing and editing, Time Traveler's Wife, The Three Incestuous Sisters, Her Fearful Symmetry, more.
Feature-length radio interview
on

KGNU KGNU (1390 AM) & KGNU-FM (88.5 FM) are a pair of community radio stations licensed to Denver and Boulder, Colorado respectively. KGNU is owned by Boulder Community Broadcast Association, Inc. History KFML 1390 AM was first licensed on April 4, ...

with Claudia Cragg discussing 'Her Fearful Symmetry'
Audrey Niffenegger Papers
at

Newberry Library The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities and located on Washington Square in Chicago, Illinois. It has been free and open to the public since 1887. Its collections encompass a variety of topics rel ...

Audrey Niffenegger on Meet The Writers
Monocle 24 talking to

Georgina Godwin Georgina may refer to: Names * Georgina (name), a feminine given name Places Australia * Georgina, Queensland, a locality in the Shire of Boulia, Queensland * Georgina Basin, a large sedimentary basin in Australia * Georgina River, a riv ...

*Two-part interview conducted by Henk de Berg (2019) on Niffenegger's career, "The Time Traveler's Wife" and its sequel, "The Other Husband"
part 1part 2
{{DEFAULTSORT:Niffenegger, Audrey 1963 births Living people 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers American agnostics American former Christians American women novelists American women poets Columbia College Chicago faculty American contemporary artists Evanston Township High School alumni Former Roman Catholics Northwestern University alumni People from South Haven, Michigan Women romantic fiction writers Women science fiction and fantasy writers Writers from Chicago Novelists from Michigan Writers of time travel romance Novelists from Illinois American women academics