Name Chuck Kinder | Role Novelist | |
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Education Stanford University, West Virginia University Books Honeymooners, Snakehunter, Last mountain dancer, Imagination Motel, The silver ghost | ||
Charles Alfonso Kinder, II (born 1946) is an American novelist.
Chuck Kinder was born October 8 in Montgomery, West Virginia to Charles Alfonso and Eileen Reba (Parsons) Kinder. He was educated at West Virginia University (BA, MA) and Stanford University (Stegner Fellowship). After teaching at Stanford and Waynesburg College, Kinder is currently professor emeritus of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has been based since 1980.
At Stanford, Kinder became close friends with fellow students Raymond Carver and Scott Turow and Stegner alumnus Larry McMurtry. His relationship with Carver inspired his 2001 novel Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale, which for nearly twenty years had vexed Kinder and had grown, uncontrollably, into a sprawling manuscript of over 3,000 pages. Kinder's struggle with this manuscript was local legend at the University of Pittsburgh. Michael Chabon, once an undergraduate student of Kinder's, used it as inspiration for the character Grady Tripp in the 1995 novel Wonder Boys.
Kinder is married to Diane Cecily Blackmer. They reside in Pittsburgh.