Lorraine Adams 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 ...

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 ...

. As a journalist, she is known as a contributor to the ''

New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', and a former contributor to ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''. As a novelist, she is known for the award-winning ''Harbor'' and its follow-up, ''The Room and the Chair''.

Early life

Lorraine Adams graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in English from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1981 after completing a 76-page-long senior thesis titled "The Hero in

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

Cantos ''The Cantos'' is a long modernist poem by Ezra Pound, written in 109 canonical sections in addition to a number of drafts and fragments added as a supplement at the request of the poem's American publisher, James Laughlin. Most of it was wr ...

." She then attended

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, graduating with an M.A. in English and American Literature in 1982.

Career

Journalism

She was a staff writer for ''

'', and ''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation in 2022 of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885, by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ' ...

''. She regularly contributes to the ''

'', and is a fellow at the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

. Adams and

Dan Malone Danny Frank Malone (born January 22, 1955) is an American journalist, an investigative reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize. Malone currently works for the ''Fort Worth Weekly'', an alternative newspaper. Malone worked as a reporter for the ''Corpus ...

of ''The Dallas Morning News'' shared the 1992

Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting Pulitzer may refer to: *Joseph Pulitzer, a 19th century media magnate *Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award *Pulitzer (surname) * Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain *Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-pro ...

, citing "reporting that charged Texas police with extensive misconduct and abuses of power", including rights violations.

Novels

Her first novel was published in 2004, ''Harbor'', featuring

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

stowaways. It won accolades including ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' Award for First Fiction,

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a Public university, public research university in Richmond, Virginia, United States. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virgin ...

First Novelist Award, and ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'' Best Novel of 2004, and it made the New York Times Best Books of 2004 list. Her second novel, ''The Room and the Chair'', was published in 2010 and details the life of an American fighter pilot. The German-language edition is ''Crash'' (Zürich: Arche, 2011). Amy Wilentz, reviewing ''The Room and the Chair'' in the ''

'', stated, "Lorraine Adams is a singular and important American writer. ''The Room and the Chair'' establishes this without question: It is remarkable for its ambitions and its achievements. It's a war novel, a reporter's novel and a psychological thriller. It encompasses the broadest outlines of our world. It is also Adams' second novel, and it is gutsier and throws a wider net than the topical and gorgeously written ''Harbor'', her first. Both books are about U.S. involvement in the Middle East, about psychological and political blowback, about what happens when you wage a war and then suddenly it slaps you back, blindsides you."

Personal life

Adams lives in Harlem, New York and is married to the novelist

Richard Price Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a British moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer and pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the F ...

Awards

* 1992

* 2006 VCU First Novelist Award * 2010

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

Selected works

* "Almost Famous", ''Washington Monthly'', April 2002 * ''Harbor'', Random House, Inc., 2005, * ''The Room and the Chair'', Knopf, 2010, * ''

NYC 22 ''NYC 22'' (pronounced NYC 2-2) is an American police procedural drama television series that aired on CBS from April 15 to August 11, 2012, as a mid-season replacement for '' CSI: Miami''. On August 29, 2012, CBS canceled the series after one ...

'' "Block Party" July 2012

References

External links

"Turning Secret Intelligence to Fiction"
''The Wall Street Journal'', ALEXANDRA ALTER, FEBRUARY 3, 2010

''Powell's
"The Leonard Lopate Show"
''WNYC'', March 18, 2010

''The New York Times'', THE EDITORS, May 18, 2008

''The Washington Post'', The Reliable Source, May 20, 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Lorraine 21st-century American novelists Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting winners The Washington Post people The Dallas Morning News people American women novelists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women journalists 21st-century American journalists Princeton University alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 21st-century American women writers Fiction about refugees and displaced people