Genre Non-Fiction Name Gary Pomerantz | Role Journalist | |
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Born November 17, 1960 (age 63)
North Tarrytown, New York, USA ( 1960-11-17 ) Occupation Author, lecturer, journalist Subject History; Race Relations; Sports Education University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan Books Nine Minutes - Twenty S, Their Life's Work: The Brotherho, Wilt - 1962: The Night of 100 Po, Where Peachtree Meets Sw, The Devil's Tickets: A Night of B | ||
Stanford Sports Journalism Class with Gary Pomerantz
Gary M. Pomerantz (born November 17, 1960) is an American journalist and nonfiction author who lectures in the graduate program in journalism at Stanford University. His books include Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn (1996 New York Times Notable Book of the Year), a multi-generational biography of Atlanta, Georgia and its racial conscience, told through the families of Atlanta Mayors Maynard Jackson and Ivan Allen Jr., and Their Life’s Work (2013), a narrative about the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty that follows that storied team across the decades and examines football’s gifts and costs.
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Early life
Pomerantz was born in North Tarrytown, New York, the youngest of three boys. His family moved to Orlando, Florida when he was a boy, and then to Los Angeles, California in 1971. He studied history at the University of California, Berkeley, served for a time as sports editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Californian, and graduated in 1982.
Career
He spent nearly two decades as a daily journalist. In 1981, he followed John Feinstein and Michael Wilbon as a summer intern in the sports department at The Washington Post. At the Post, he covered the Washington Redskins, Georgetown University basketball and the National Football League. In 1987-1988, he served as a Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan, studying theater and the Bible. He then moved to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution where, for the next 11 years, he wrote social and political profiles, special projects, columns and served on the newspaper's editorial board.
His five nonfiction books feature a broad array of topics. Nine Minutes Twenty Seconds (2001), about the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 7529, was also published in China, Germany and Britain. In WILT, 1962 (2005), Pomerantz describes the night when basketball star Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Named an "Editors' Choice" book by The New York Times, WILT, 1962 was described by Entertainment Weekly as "a meticulous and engaging narrative – a slam dunk of a read."
His most recent book, Their Life’s Work, was short-listed for the 2014 PEN/ESPN Award for literary sportswriting.
From 1999 to 2001 Pomerantz served as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at Emory University in Atlanta. Beginning in 2011, he began working at Stanford University teaching courses on specialized reporting and writing.
Personal life
He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, and their three children.