Calvin Marshall Trillin (born December 5, 1935) is an American
journalist
A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism.
Roles
Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...
,
humorist
A humorist is an intellectual who uses humor, or wit, in writing or public speaking. A raconteur is one who tells anecdotes in a skillful and amusing way.
Henri Bergson writes that a humorist's work grows from viewing the morals of society ...
, food writer, poet, memoirist and
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...
. He is a winner of the
Thurber Prize for American Humor (2012) and an elected member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...
(2008).
Early life and education
Calvin Trillin was born in
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...
, in 1935 to Edythe and Abe Trillin. In his book ''Messages from My Father'', he said his parents called him "Buddy". Raised Jewish, he attended public schools in Kansas City, graduated from
Southwest High School, and went on to
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
, where he was the roommate and friend of
Peter M. Wolf (for whose 2013 memoir, ''My New Orleans, Gone Away'', he wrote a humorous foreword), and where he served as chair of the ''
Yale Daily News
The ''Yale Daily News'' is an independent student newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven, Connecticut, since January 28, 1878.
Description
Financially and editorially independent of Yale University since its founding, th ...
'' and was a member of the Pundits and
Scroll and Key
The Scroll and Key Society is a Collegiate secret societies in North America, secret society, founded in 1842 at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the oldest Collegiate secret societies in North America#Yale University, Ya ...
before graduating in 1957; he later served as a
Fellow
A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...
of the
University
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
.
Career
After serving in the
U.S. Army, Trillin worked as a reporter for ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine, then joined the staff of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' in 1963. He wrote the magazine's "U.S. Journal" series from 1967 to 1982, covering local events both serious and quirky throughout the United States. His reporting for the magazine on the
racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation), leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of Race (classification of human beings), race, and t ...
of the
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...
was published in his first book, ''An Education in Georgia'' (1964).

From 1975 to 1987, Trillin contributed articles to ''
Moment'', an independent magazine which focuses on the life of the American Jewish community.
Trillin also writes for ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
''. He began in 1978 with a column called "Variations", which was eventually renamed "Uncivil Liberties"; it ran through 1985. The same name was used for the column when it was syndicated weekly in newspapers, from 1986 to 1995, and essentially the same column ran (without a name) in ''Time'' from 1996 to 2001. His humor columns for ''The Nation'' during the 1980s and 1990s often made fun of then-editor
Victor Navasky, whom he jokingly referred to as ''the wily and parsimonious'' Navasky. (He once wrote that the magazine paid "in the high two figures.") Since July 1990, Trillin has written humorous poems about current events as part of his weekly "Deadline Poet" column in ''The Nation''.
Family, travel and food are major themes in Trillin's work. Three of his books on food — ''American Fried'' (1974), ''Alice, Let's Eat'' (1978) and ''Third Helpings'' (1983) — were collected in the 1994 compendium ''The Tummy Trilogy.'' Trillin has also written several autobiographical books and magazine articles, including ''Messages from My Father'' (1996), ''Family Man'' (1998), and an essay in the March 27, 2006 issue of ''The New Yorker'', "Alice, Off the Page", discussing his late wife. In December 2006, a slightly expanded version of the essay was published as a book titled ''About Alice''. In ''Messages from My Father'', Trillin recounts how his father always expected his son to be a
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
, but had primarily "raised me to be an American".
Trillin has also written a collection of short stories, ''Barnett Frummer is an Unbloomed Flower'' (1969), and three comic novels, ''Runestruck'' (1977), ''Floater'' (1980), and ''Tepper Isn't Going Out'' (2002). The latter novel is about a man who enjoys parking in New York City for its own sake and is unusual among novels for exploring the subject of
parking
Parking is the act of stopping and disengaging a vehicle and usually leaving it unoccupied. Parking on one or both sides of a road is often permitted, though sometimes with restrictions. Some buildings have parking facilities for use of the bu ...
.
In 2008, Trillin was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...
. The same year,
The Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published more than 300 volumes by authors ...
selected Trillin's essay "Stranger with a Camera" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime. In 2012, Trillin was awarded the
Thurber Prize for American Humor for ''Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff'', published by Random House. In 2013, he was inducted into the
New York Writers Hall of Fame.
Personal life
In 1965, Trillin married the educator and writer
Alice Stewart Trillin, with whom he had two daughters.
Alice died in 2001.
He also has four grandchildren. Trillin lives in the
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...
area of New York City.
Trillin was a close friend of
Joan Didion
Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe.
Didio ...
and her husband
John Gregory Dunne. He met Dunne when the two worked at ''Time'' in the 1960s. Dunne wrote an afterword to Trillin's 1993 book ''Remembering Denny'' and Trillin contributed a foreword to Dunne's posthumously released collection ''Regards'' (2005). In September 2022, Trillin was one of the speakers at Didion's memorial service in New York City.
Bibliography
Non-fiction
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Novels
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Short fiction
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Poetry
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References
External links
Column archiveat ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
''
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"Calvin Trillin Is Going Out — to Eat (Again)" Dave Weich, ''Powells.com ''
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ttp://www.salon.com/weekly/interview960624.html "The Salon Interview: Calvin Trillin""Chillin’ with Calvin Trillin"Interview by Pamela Ryckman, ''
The Brooklyn Rail
''The Brooklyn Rail'' is an American publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics, based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and ...
'' (June 2005)
Politics In Verse With Calvin Trillin Interview.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trillin, Calvin
1935 births
Living people
Writers from Kansas City, Missouri
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
Jewish American novelists
American columnists
American food writers
American humorists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American travel writers
Yale University alumni
The Nation (U.S. magazine) people
The New Yorker people
People from Greenwich Village
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Novelists from New York (state)
Novelists from Missouri
James Beard Foundation Award winners
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American Jews
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters