Michael Cunningham (born November 6, 1952) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel '' The Hours'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is Professor in the Practice of Creative Writing at

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 ...

Early life and education

Cunningham was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, and grew up in

La Cañada Flintridge, California La Cañada Flintridge, commonly known as just , is a city in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located in the Crescenta Valley, in the western edge of the San Gabriel Valley, it is the l ...

. He studied

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where he earned his degree. Later, at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

, he received a Michener Fellowship and was awarded a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

degree from the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...

. While studying at Iowa, he had short stories published in the '' Atlantic Monthly'' and ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

''. His short story "White Angel" was later used as a chapter in his novel ''A Home at the End of the World''. It was included in "The Best American Short Stories, 1989", published by Houghton Mifflin. In 1988, Cunningham received a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

Fellowship and in 1993 a

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 ...

. In 1995 he was awarded a Whiting Award. Cunningham has taught at the Fine Arts Work Center in

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Provi ...

, and in the creative writing M.F.A. program at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

Career

'' The Hours'' established Cunningham as a major force in the American writing sphere, and his 2010 novel, '' By Nightfall'', was also well received by U.S. critics. Cunningham edited a book of poetry and prose by Walt Whitman, ''Laws for Creations'', and co-wrote, with Susan Minot, a screenplay adapted from Minot's novel ''Evening''. He was a producer for the 2007 film ''

Evening Evening is the period of a day that begins at the end of daylight and overlaps with the beginning of night. It generally indicates the period of time when the sun is close to the horizon and comprises the periods of civil, nautical and astronom ...

'', starring Glenn Close, Toni Collette, and Meryl Streep. In November 2010, Cunningham judged one of NPR's "Three Minute Fiction" contests. In April 2018, it was announced that Cunningham would serve as consulting producer for a revival of the '' Tales of the City'' miniseries, which is based on Armistead Maupin's book series of the same name. The

miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...

premiered on June 7, 2019.

Personal life

Although Cunningham is gay, and married to psychoanalyst Ken Corbett, he dislikes being referred to as a gay writer, according to a PlanetOut article. While he often writes about gay people, he does not "want the gay aspects of isbooks to be perceived as their single, primary characteristic." Cunningham lives in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York and works in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

Bibliography

Novels

* ''Golden States'' (1984) * '' A Home at the End of the World'' (1990) * ''Flesh and Blood'' (1995) * '' The Hours'' (1998) * '' Specimen Days'' (2005) * '' By Nightfall'' (2010) * ''The Snow Queen'' (2014) * ''Day'' (2023)

Short stories

Collections: * ''A Wild Swan and Other Tales'' (2015), Farrar, Straus and Giroux , collection of 11 short stories: *: "Dis. Enchant.", "A Wild Swan", "Crazy Old Lady", "Jacked", "Poisoned", "A Monkey's Paw", "Little Man", "Steadfast; Tin", "Beasts", "Her Hair", "Ever/After" Uncollected short stories: * "White Angel" (1989), later used as a chapter in novel ''A Home at the End of the World'' * "Mister Brother" (1999) * "The Destruction Artist" (2007), collected in ''A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer'' (2007), edited by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle * "A Wild Swan" (2010), collected in anthology '' My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales'' (2010), edited by Kate Bernheimer and Carmen Giménez Smith

Non-fiction

* , article * ''Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown'' (2002), travels * ''Company'' (2008), an essay on the influence of Virginia Woolf on Cunningham's writing * ''About Time: Fashion and Duration'' (2020), with Andrew Bolton, couture

Screenplays

* '' A Home at the End of the World'' (2004) * ''

'' (2007)

Contributor

* ''Drawn by the Sea'' (2000) ( exhibition catalogue text; 110 signed copies) * '' The Voyage Out'' (2001), by

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

(Modern Library Classics edition) (Introduction) * ''I Am Not This Body: The Pinhole Photographs of

Barbara Ess Barbara Ess (born Barbara Eileen Schwartz; April 4, 1944 – March 4, 2021) was an American pinhole camera photographer, No Wave musician and ''Just Another Asshole'' editor. She taught photography at Bard College since 1997; who in 2024, along w ...

'' (2001) (Text) * '' Washington Square'' (2004), by Henry James (Signet Classics edition) (Afterword) * '' Death in Venice'' (2004), by

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

(new translation by Michael Henry Heim) (Introduction) * ''Laws for Creations'' (2006), poems by Walt Whitman (Editor and introduction) * ''Fall River Boys'' (2012), photo book by Richard Renaldi, introductory essay

Adaptations

* '' The Hours'' (2002), film directed by

Stephen Daldry Stephen David Daldry Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 2 May 1960) is an English director and producer of film, theatre, and television. He has won three Tony Awards for his work on Broadway theatre, Broadway and an Olivie ...

, based on novel '' The Hours'' * '' The Hours'' (2022), opera with music by

Kevin Puts Kevin Matthew Puts (born January 3, 1972) is an American composer, best known for his opera ''The Hours (opera), The Hours'' and for winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his first opera ''Silent Night (opera), Silent Night'' and a Grammy Award i ...

and libretto by Greg Pierce, based on the novel and the film * '' A Home at the End of the World'' (2004), film directed by Michael Mayer, based on novel '' A Home at the End of the World'' * ''The Destruction Artist'' (2012), short film directed by Michael Sharpe, based on short story "The Destruction Artist" * ''The Hours: A Live Tribute'' (2016), short film directed by Tim McNeill, based on novel '' The Hours''

Awards and achievements

*"White Angel" was included in the 1989 '' Best American Short Stories''. *"Mister Brother" was included in the 2000 '' O. Henry Prize Stories''. For ''The Hours'', Cunningham was awarded the: * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - 1999 * PEN/Faulkner Award - 1999 * Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Book Award - 1999 In 1995, Cunningham received the a Whiting Award. In 2011, Cunningham won the Fernanda Pivano Award for American Literature in Italy. He won the Premio Gregor von Rezzori for ''Day'' in 2024.

References

External links

* *
2004 article by Randy Shulman
from '' Metro Weekly''
Michael Cunningham's profile
in

Michael Cunningham's profile
a
The Whiting Foundation

Speculative Fiction and the Art of Subversion - Conversation between Michael Cunningham and Margaret Atwood
a
Key West Literary Seminar

Michael Cunningham, A Life In Writing, article in ''The Guardian''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Michael 1952 births 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American people of Croatian descent American gay writers Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni American LGBTQ novelists LGBTQ people from California LGBTQ people from Ohio Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction winners Stonewall Book Award winners Living people Novelists from Ohio PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners People from Provincetown, Massachusetts American postmodern writers Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners Stanford University alumni University of Iowa alumni Writers from Cincinnati Writers from Pasadena, California Yale University faculty Brooklyn College faculty Novelists from California Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters