Genres Fiction, Nonfiction | Genre Non-fiction | |
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Born October 3, 1967 (age 49)
Kansas City, Missouri ( 1967-10-03 ) Occupation Writer, Author, Assistant Professor Alma mater Princeton University; University of Iowa Education University of Iowa, Princeton University Books The Good Lieutenant: A Novel, The king of Kings County, The Huntsman, The Good Lieutenant | ||
A writer at home whitney terrell for booketology at the kansas city public library
Whitney Terrell (born October 3, 1967) is an American writer and educator from Kansas City, Missouri. Terrell has published two novels and his writing has appeared in Harper's Magazine, Slate, The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, and others.
Contents
- A writer at home whitney terrell for booketology at the kansas city public library
- The writer s block a video q a with whitney terrell
- Early life education personal life
- Professional life
- References
The writer s block a video q a with whitney terrell
Early life, education, personal life
Whitney Terrell was born in Kansas City, Missouri and attended high school at The Pembroke Hill School. He earned a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Princeton University in 1991. In 1992 Terrell moved to Iowa City, where he completed his MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. During his time at University of Iowa, Terrell studied with James Alan McPherson who sparked his interest in writing about race in Kansas City, which is the focus of Terrell's two novels.
Terrell lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife and two children. He has taught at The University of Missouri–Kansas City since 2004.
Professional life
After earning his master's degree, Terrell worked as a fact checker for The New York Observer. From 1996 to 2001 Terrell taught at Rockhurst University in Kansas City and became the Writer in Residence from 2000 to 2003.
His first novel, The Huntsman, was published in 2001. The novel centers on a young African American who elbows his way into Kansas City's white, upper-class society while searching for answers about his family's past. The New York Times chose it as a notable book and The Kansas City Star and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch selected it as a best book of 2001.
In 2005, Terrell published his second novel, The King of Kings County. This book elaborated on the relationship between real estate and race in Kansas City, tracing the life of an ambitious developer who uses racial covenants to build a segregated suburban empire. The book won the William Rockhill Nelson award and was named a best book of 2005 by The Christian Science Monitor.
In 2006 Terrell was named to a list of best writers under 40 by a panel of National Book Critics Circle Award members.
In 2006 and 2010, Terrell embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq. He covered the war for The Washington Post Magazine, Slate and NPR.
Terrell was the Hodder Fellow at Princeton University for 2008–2009 and a visiting lecturer in 2011. He was the New Letters Writer-in-Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City from 2004 to 2014. In 2014 he became an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at UMKC.
Terrell's third book A Good Lieutenant: A Novel will be published in June 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.