Garth Greenwell Explained

Garth Greenwell
Birth Date: March 19, 1978
Birth Place:Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Known For:What Belongs to You
Cleanness
Education:Interlochen Arts Academy
Alma Mater:State University of New York at Purchase (BA)
Washington University in St. Louis (MFA)
Harvard University (MA)
Occupation:Novelist

Garth Greenwell (born March 19, 1978) is an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and educator. He has published the novella Mitko (2011) and the novels What Belongs to You (2016) and Cleanness (2020). He has also published stories in The Paris Review[1] and A Public Space and writes criticism for The New Yorker[2] and The Atlantic.[3]

In 2013, Greenwell returned to the United States after living in Bulgaria to attend the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop as an Arts Fellow.[4] [5]

Early life

Garth Greenwell was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 19, 1978, and graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, in 1996. He studied voice at the Eastman School of Music, then transferred to earn a BA degree in Literature with a minor in Lesbian and Gay Studies from the State University of New York at Purchase in 2001, where he served as a contributing editor for In Posse Review and received the 2000 Grolier Poetry Prize.[6] [7] He received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, an MA in English and American Literature from Harvard University, and also spent three years on Ph.D. coursework there.[8]

Career

Greenwell taught English at Greenhills, a private high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at the American College of Sofia in Bulgaria; the school is famous for being the oldest American educational institution outside the US.[9] His frequent book reviews in the literary journal West Branch transitioned into a yearly column called "To a Green Thought: Garth Greenwell on Poetry."[10] [11] [12]

Greenwell's first novella, Mitko, won the Miami University Press Novella Prize[13] and was a finalist for the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award as well as the Lambda Award.[13] His work has appeared in Yale Review,[14] Boston Review,[15] Salmagundi, Michigan Quarterly Review,[16] and Poetry International, among others.

His debut novel, What Belongs to You, was called the "first great novel of 2016" by Publishers Weekly.[17] His second novel, Cleanness, was published in January 2020 and well received by critics.[18] [19] [20]

Greenwell has received the Grolier Prize, the Rella Lossy Award, an award from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, and the Bechtel Prize from the Teachers & Writers Collaborative.[21] He was the 2008 John Atherton Scholar for Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.

LGBT rights advocacy in Bulgaria

In its article "Of LGBT, Life and Literature," the English-language weekly newspaper Sofia Echo credits Greenwell's publications with bringing much needed attention to the LGBT experience in Bulgaria and to other English-speaking audiences through various broadcasts, interviews, blog posts, and reviews.[22]

In an interview with Literary Hub about the release of Kinks, he said about Grindr: "I want to argue for the value of those spaces existing as well. I would want to argue—again, with the understanding that there are lots of places for gay men to meet gay men, where nobody’s going to grab anyone’s crotch—that the kind of sociality that is possible in that atmosphere of permissiveness is really valuable. I would want to argue for places like that being able to exist."[23]

Bibliography

Novels

Anthologies (edited)

Short fiction

Stories[24]
width=25%TitleYearFirst publishedReprinted/collectedNotes
Mitko2011Book: Mitko. Miami University Press. 2011. Novella
An Evening Out2017Greenwell, Garth . August 21, 2017 . An Evening Out . The New Yorker . 93 . 24 . 62–69 .
The Frog King2018November 26, 2018 . The Frog King . The New Yorker . 94 . 42 . 74–81 .
Harbor2019September 16, 2019. Harbor. The New Yorker.

Essays and reporting

Notes

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Gospodar. Greenwell. Garth. 2014-01-01. Paris Review. 209. 0031-2037. 2016-03-24. 2016-03-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20160313025607/http://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6314/gospodar-garth-greenwell. live.
  2. Garth Greenwell. The New Yorker. 2016-03-24. 2016-03-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20160310103250/http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/garth-greenwell. live.
  3. Web site: Garth Greenwell. Greenwell. Garth. The Atlantic. en-US. 2016-03-24. 2016-03-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304094044/http://www.theatlantic.com/author/garth-greenwell/. live.
  4. Web site: Garth Greenwell . lighthousewriters.org . June 10, 2024 . Greenwell holds graduate degrees from Harvard University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. A native of Kentucky, Greenwell taught high school in Sofia, Bulgaria for four years before returning to the States. He is the 2018-19 John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. He lives in Iowa City. .
  5. Web site: Iowa City author Garth Greenwell hopes to break the ice for queer writers working in Bulgaria . Lucy . Morris . January 20, 2016 . June 10, 2024 . Most profoundly, the experience of being gay in Bulgaria in 2009-2013 and the experience of teaching adolescents in Bulgaria and so talking to gay adolescents in Bulgaria, just kept throwing me back again and again to the early ’90s in Kentucky when I was coming into awareness of myself as a gay person..
  6. Web site: In Pose Review . Orpheus Sequence . Greenwell . Garth . March 21, 2021 . May 21, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210521230808/http://www.webdelsol.com/InPosse/greenwell7.htm . live .
  7. Web site: Table of contents . disquietingmuses . https://web.archive.org/web/20170422140926/http://www.dmqreview.com/may01/toc.html . April 22, 2017 . March 21, 2021.
  8. News: Barone. Joshua. January 9, 2020. Garth Greenwell Comes Clean. en-US. C6. New York Times. February 15, 2021. 0362-4331. February 14, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210214020034/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/books/garth-greenwell-cleanness.html. live.
  9. Web site: Faculty. acs.bg. 2016-03-24. 2016-03-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20160313000605/http://www.acs.bg/Home/About_ACS/Faculty.aspx#Garth_Greenwell. dead.
  10. Web site: To a Green Thought: Garth Greenwell on Poetry.. 2011-12-11. 2013-06-12. https://web.archive.org/web/20130612070025/http://www.bucknell.edu/Documents/StadlerCenter/GreenwellEssay63.pdf. dead.
  11. Greenwell, Garth. "The First Thing and the Last" and "Two Elegists" in West Branch.
  12. Web site: Teacher Garth Greenwell's New Poetry Column: To a Green Thought . January 8, 2009 . Green Hill School . March 21, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120405233052/http://greenhillsschool.org/news-events/news-archive/2010-03-17/teacher-garth-greenwells-new-poetry-column-green-thought-0 . April 5, 2012.
  13. Web site: Miami University Press - Mitko. 2011-12-10. 2012-04-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20120406202027/http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/mupress/details/greenwell_mitko.htm. live.
  14. Greenwell, Garth. 2010. "An Evening Out." The Yale Review, 92:2. Web site: Yale Review | contributors . 2011-12-10 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100606155954/http://www.yale.edu/yalereview/backissues/contributors/982.html . 2010-06-06 .
  15. Greenwell, Garth. "Facilitas", Boston Review. December 2004/January 2005.
  16. Greenwell . Garth . 2008 . Likeness . Michigan Quarterly Review . 47 . 4 . 2027/spo.act2080.0047.405 . March 21, 2021.
  17. Web site: Staff Pick: 'What Belongs to You' by Garth Greenwell. PublishersWeekly.com. Gabe. Habash. 2015-12-04. 2016-03-24. 2016-04-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20160405052302/http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/68856-staff-pick-what-belongs-to-you-by-garth-greenwell.html. live.
  18. Web site: Sex, Violence and Self-Discovery Collide in the Incandescent 'Cleanness'. Dwight. Garner. The New York Times. 2020-01-13. 2020-01-15. 2020-01-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20200115005731/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/books/review-cleanness-garth-greenwell.html. live.
  19. These gorgeous new novels explore sex with empathy, complexity, and radical honesty. Leah. Greenblatt. Entertainment Weekly. 2020-01-14. 2020-01-15. 2020-01-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20200115142338/https://ew.com/book-reviews/2020/01/14/cleanness-garth-greenwell-topics-of-conversation-miranda-popkey/. live.
  20. Web site: Review: Garth Greenwell's 'Cleanness' thrums with life's questions. Los Angeles Times. Nellie. Hermann. 2020-01-10. 2020-01-15. 2020-01-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20200115034724/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-01-10/cleanness-garth-greenwell. live.
  21. Web site: The Bechtel Prize: 2010 Winner and Finalists . 2011-12-10 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111108042624/http://www.twc.org/assets/42-2-Bechtel.pdf . 2011-11-08 .
  22. Web site: LGBT, Life and Literature." The Sofia Echo. June 17, 2011 . December 10, 2011 . March 5, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160305005414/http://sofiaecho.com/2011/06/17/1107712_of-lgbt-life-and-literature. . live .
  23. Web site: Sciallo . Andrew . Sex, Freedom, Cruising, and Consent: A Conversation with Garth Greenwell . Literary Hub . 24 June 2022 . May 23, 2023 . March 28, 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230328213353/https://lithub.com/sex-freedom-cruising-and-consent-a-conversation-with-garth-greenwell/ . live .
  24. Short stories unless otherwise noted.
  25. Discusses, among other things, the novel The end of Eddy by French author Édouard Louis. Online version is titled "Growing up poor and queer in a French village".

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