Mark Childress

This article is about the novelist. For the American government official, see Mark B. Childress.

Mark Childress (born 1957) is an American novelist and Southern writer.

Mark Childress
Born	1957 (age 66–67) Monroeville, Alabama, U.S.
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Alabama
Website
markchildress.com

Biography

Born in Monroeville, Alabama, Childress grew up in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, and Louisiana. He attended the University of Alabama,^[1] where he was a member of the Mallet Assembly. In 1978, Childress was a reporter for The Birmingham News, Features Editor of Southern Living magazine, and Regional Editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

He was a former resident of Dallas and New York, and lives in Key West, Florida since 2011.

Articles and reviews by Childress have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the Saturday Review, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Travel and Leisure, and other national and international publications.

He wrote three picture books for children: Joshua and Bigtooth,^[2] Joshua and the Big Bad Blue Crabs,^[3] and Henry Bobbity Is Missing And It Is All Billy Bobbity's Fault.^[4]

His novel, Crazy in Alabama was published on July 22, 1993. He wrote the screenplay for the 1999 film adaptation directed by Antonio Banderas and starring Melanie Griffith.

Awards

Childress won the Thomas Wolfe Award, the University of Alabama's Distinguished Alumni Award, and the Alabama Library Association's Writer of the Year.

Tender,^[5] a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection, was named to several Ten Best of 1990 lists, and appeared on many national bestseller lists.

Crazy in Alabama was a featured selection of the Literary Guild appeared on many bestseller lists and Ten Best of 1993 lists.^[6] The novel was The (London) Spectator's "Book of the Year" for 1993 and a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year", and was on the Der Spiegel bestseller list in Germany for ten months.^[6] The film adaptation premiered at the Venice Film Festival and San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1999.

One Mississippi^[7] was a summer reading selection of Good Morning America, O: The Oprah Magazine, People magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and was nominated for the Southeastern Independent Booksellers Association's "Book of the Year" award. Stephen King named One Mississippi^[7] as #3 on his list of the "Ten Best Books of 2006" in Entertainment Weekly.

Bibliography

• A World Made of Fire^[8]
• V for Victor^[9]
• Tender^[5]
• Crazy in Alabama^[6]
• Gone for Good^[10]
• One Mississippi^[7]
• Georgia Bottoms^[11]

References

1. Hughes, Mark (March 10, 2011). "Mark Childress plumbs the depths of small-town life". Tuscaloosa News. Retrieved December 12, 2022.
2. Childress, M. (1992). Joshua and Bigtooth. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
3. Childress, M. & Brown, M. B. (1995). Joshua and the Big Bad Blue Crabs. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
4. Childress, M. (1996). Henry Bobbity Is Missing And It Is All Billy Bobbity's Fault. Birmingham, AL: Crane Hill Publishers.
5. Childress, M. (1990). Tender. New York: Harmony Books.
6. Childress, M. (1993). Crazy in Alabama. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
7. Childress, M. (2006). One Mississippi. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
8. Childress, M. (1984). A World Made of Fire. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
9. Childress, M. (1988). V for Victor. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
10. Childress, M. (1998). Gone for Good. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
11. Childress, M. (2011). Georgia Bottoms. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

External links

• Official site
• Mark Childress at IMDb