Tod Wodicka (born May 30, 1976) is an American author who grew up in Queensbury, New York. He has lived in Manchester, England; Prague; Rock City Falls; and Moscow. He currently lives in

Berlin, Germany Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent ...

. He graduated from the University of Manchester in the UK.

Work

Novels

''All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well''

His critically acclaimed first novel, ''All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well'' has been translated into German, Spanish and Dutch. (The title is a quotation from the Christian mystic

Julian of Norwich Julian of Norwich (1343 – after 1416), also known as Juliana of Norwich, Dame Julian or Mother Julian, was an English mystic and anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as ''Revelations of Divine Love'', are the earlies ...

, also quoted by

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

in his poem ''

Little Gidding Little Gidding is a small village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. It lies approximately northwest of Huntingdon, near Sawtry, within Huntingdonshire, which is a district of Cambridgeshire as well as a historic county. A small p ...

''.) The novel was short-listed for the 2008

Believer Book Award Believer Book Award is an American literary award presented yearly by '' The Believer'' magazine to novels and story collections, nonfiction books or essay collections, poetry collections, and, beginning in 2021 (awarding to books published in 2020) ...

. The novel was published by

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...

(US) and

Jonathan Cape Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...

(UK); and

Vintage Books Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Hous ...

paperback (US & UK). ''All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well'' tells the story of Burt Hecker, a medieval re-enactor from upstate New York who travels to Prague to find his estranged son Tristan. The book is a darkly comic story about Burt's devotion to another time and his doomed attempts at coming to terms with his own history.

''The Household Spirit''

His second novel, ''The Household Spirit,'' was published by

(US) and

(UK) in June 2015. ''The Household Spirit'' is about the curious friendship between Howie Jeffries, a shy, 50-year-old recluse and Emily Phane, an irreverent young woman who suffers from horrific sleep paralysis attacks. It takes place in Queens Falls, the same fictional upstate New York town Wodicka wrote about in ''All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well''. The novel was awarded a Kirkus Star and was critically acclaimed in '' The New Yorker'', '' The Financial Times'', '' Esquire Magazine'', '' The Sunday Times'', '' Artforum'', ''

Tank Magazine ''Tank'' is an independent UK-based magazine launched in 1998. It is a quarterly publication, printed in the UK, that covers contemporary culture, fashion, art, architecture, technology and politics. Since its launch, the Tank group has expanded t ...

'' and '' The Independent''.

Other work

Tod Wodicka's essays, criticism and fiction has appeared in '' The Guardian'', '' Granta'', '' Tank (magazine)'', '' New Statesman'', ''South as a State of Mind'', ''

AnOther Magazine ''Another Magazine'', styled ''AnOther'', is an international fashion and culture bi-annual. Founded in 2001, its Editor-in-Chief is Susannah Frankel, who joined in January 2016. Frankel had been Fashion Features Director of the magazine since ...

'', '' The National'', '' Art Papers'', '' BBC Radio 4'' and ''

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

''. He wrote the afterword to David Tibet of Current 93's art book, ''Some Gnostic Cartoons''. He has been a resident at Yaddo; a literary fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany; and a writer in residence at Het beschrijf at Passa Porta in Belgium.

Bibliography

* *

External links

;Selected Essays * (on the new behavioral traditions of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) * (on Travel Writing & the End of the World) * (on Travel Writing &

Vengeance Vengeance may refer to: *Vengeance (concept) or revenge, a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance Film * ''Vengeance'' (1930 film), action adventure film directed by Archie Mayo * ''Vengeance'' (1937 film) or ''W ...

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

's house) * (a musical playlist for "The Household Spirit") * (on almost dying from a pimple in a Czech hospital) * (On exploring the comments section of adult websites) * (on being trapped in Germany, his young son and Brideshead Revisited) * (on Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman novels) * (on pirates, mustaches and discovering his father's homosexuality) ;Radio
BBC Radio 3 The Essay
(on suffering from Sleep Paralysis and possibly having magical powers and/or mental illness)
WAMC Northeast Public Radio
(Interview about the novel, "The Household Spirit")
BBC World Service - Outlook- radio program
(a reading by and interview with Tod Wodicka)
BBC Radio 4 Short Story
(on dark alcoholic fun in Albany, New York airport hotels) ;Interviews
BBC World Service

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

ExBerliner 2015

Der Freitag
(Interview in German.)
ExBerliner 2011

Das Fragebuch / The Question Book
;Reviews of All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well * * * * ;Reviews of The Household Spirit
The New Yorker

(''Wodicka uses two characters’ incompatibility to his advantage, creating a dialogue of disorientation and a plot which slips seamlessly between points of view.'')
Kirkus Reviews
(Starred: ''Wodicka’s fluid, expressive prose—dotted with quotable observations often as odd as his players—serves well his weaving of such a convincing, unexpected story from eccentricity, pain, and need.'')
The Sunday Times

Financial Times

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wodicka, Tod 21st-century American novelists American male novelists 1976 births Living people People from Glens Falls, New York People from Queensbury, New York 21st-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state) Alumni of the University of Manchester