Madison Smartt Bell was born in Nashville, TN in 1957.
He is the author of 14 works of fiction, including Doctor Sleep; Save Me, Joe Louis; Ten Indians; Soldier's Joy, which received the Lillian Smith Award; Ten Indians, and All Soul's Rising, which was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award, and received the 1996 Anisfield-Wolf award for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race.
In 2002, Doctor Sleep was adapted into the film Close Your Eyes. Forty Words For Fear, an album of songs co-written by Bell and Wyn Cooper, and inspired by the novel Anything Goes, was released by Gaff Music in 2003; other performers include Don Dixon, Jim Brock, Mitch Easter and Chris Frank. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, published in 2007, is Bell’s most recent book.
He has taught in several creative writing programs, including the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars.
Bell now lives in Baltimore, Maryland where he teaches at Goucher College, along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth Spires.
He is currently Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher, and has been a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers since 2003.
|
|
