Tara Ison Explained

Nationality:American
Alma Mater:Bennington College (MFA)
Workplaces:
Notable Works:

Tara Ison (born 1964[1]) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

She is the author of three novels: Rockaway (Soft Skull Press, 2013), The List (Scribner, 2007), and A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, 1997), which was a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.[2] A collection of essays, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned To Live, Love & Die at the Movies, was published by Soft Skull Press in January 2015, and was the winner of the 2015 PEN Southwest Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her short story collection, Ball, was published by Soft Skull Press in Fall 2015. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2020 in support of a short story collection tentatively titled "The Meat Bee," after her 2018 story published in Tin House.[3] Her most recent novel, At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf (IG Publishing) was published in 2023 and was a New York Times Editors' Choice recommendation.[4] [5]

Work

Ison received her MFA in Fiction & Literature from Bennington College, where she was a student of Rick Moody. Institutions she has taught creative writing and screenwriting at include Washington University in St. Louis, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Goddard College and Antioch University Los Angeles. In addition, she has taught UC Riverside Palm Desert's MFA in Creative Writing program. Presently, she is a professor of English at Arizona State University.[6] She also is faculty of New England College's MFA program.[7]

Work by Ison has appeared in Tin House, Salon,[8] O, The Oprah Magazine,[9] Electric Literature,[10] The Kenyon Review,[11] The Rumpus,[12] Nerve, Black Clock, TriQuarterly,[13] The Santa Monica Review, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publishers Weekly,[14] [15] The Week, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly,[16] the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune,[17] the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies.

She is also the co-writer, with Neil Landau, of the 1991 cult classic movie Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. The pair had originally written the script in 1987.[18]

Awards and honors

Ison is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships in 2020 and 2008, and a 2008 COLA Individual Artist Grant, as well as multiple Yaddo fellowships, a Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Study, a Brandeis National Women's Committee Award, a Thurber House Fiction Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, the Simon Blattner Fellowship from Northwestern University, and a California Arts Council Artists' Fellowship Award.

Books

Screenwriting

Television

YearTitleEpisodeNetwork
1990Doogie Howser, M.D. 'Nautilus for Naught'ABC
1996Ace Ventura: Pet Detective 'Remembrance of Trunks Past'CBS

Film

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Ison. Tara. 2012-11-14. Tara Ison: How Alcatraz Became an Ebook. 2020-08-30. Meg Waite Clayton. en-US. "The story is set from 1930 to 1963, the year before I was born...".
  2. News: Book Prizes – Los Angeles Times Festival of Books . https://web.archive.org/web/20100225050735/http://events.latimes.com/bookprizes/ . dead . February 25, 2010 . Los Angeles Times . April 19, 2013 . August 28, 2013.
  3. Web site: ASU authors Tara Ison and Sarah Viren named NEA fellows. ASU News . January 24, 2020 . 14 February 2020.
  4. Web site: ▪ Books . 2024-07-29 . Tara Ison . en-US.
  5. News: 2023-05-11 . 9 New Books We Recommend This Week . 2024-07-29 . The New York Times . en-US . 0362-4331.
  6. Web site: ASU Directory Profile: Tara Ison . Arizona State University . February 14, 2020.
  7. Web site: Creative Writing, MFA . 2024-07-29 . New England College . en-US.
  8. Web site: Ison. Tara. "Too stupid to be c*nts": The new normal of toxic male entitlement on campus. Salon . February 2016 . 13 May 2016.
  9. Web site: Ison. Tara. 2018-12-11. How an Anti-feminist Book Made Me Pause Before Criticizing Other Women. 2020-08-30. Oprah Magazine. en-US.
  10. Web site: Ison. Tara. October 28, 2015. "Ball" by Tara Ison, Recommended by Rick Moody. 13 May 2016. Electric Literature.
  11. Web site: Ison. Tara. Spring 2007. A Heart, Beating Journal. 2020-08-30. The Kenyon Review. en.
  12. Web site: Ison. Tara. 2012-05-20. The Rumpus Sunday Essay: Flesh and Bones. 2020-08-30. The Rumpus.net. en.
  13. Web site: Ison. Tara. January 14, 2013. Needles. 2020-08-30. TriQuarterly. en.
  14. Web site: 7 September 2015. Fiction Book Review: Ball by Tara Ison. 2020-08-30. PublishersWeekly.com. en.
  15. Web site: 31 March 1997. Fiction Book Review: A Child Out of Alcatraz by Tara Ison. 2020-08-30. www.publishersweekly.com.
  16. Web site: Alimurung. Gendy. 2007-03-14. John Banville, Tara Ison, Dennis Cooper. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200830172700/https://www.laweekly.com/john-banville-tara-ison-dennis-cooper/. 2020-08-30. 2020-08-30. LA Weekly. en-US.
  17. Web site: Taylor. Elizabeth. January 30, 2015. Editor's choice: 'Reeling Through Life' by Tara Ison. 2020-08-30. chicagotribune.com.
  18. Web site: Armitage. Helen. 2020-07-16. Why MTV Forced Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead's Title Change. 2020-08-30. ScreenRant. en-US.
  19. News: Winners of the 2015 PEN Southwest Book Awards. 2016-02-04. PEN Texas. 2018-03-21. en-US.