Kurlansky, Mark: -
Mark
Kurlansky was born in Hartford, Connecticut. After
receiving a BA in Theater from Butler University in 1970--and refusing to serve
in the military--Kurlansky worked in New York as a playwright, having a number
of off-off Broadway productions, and as a playwright-in-residence at Brooklyn
College. He won the 1972 Earplay award for best radio play of the
year.
He has worked many other jobs, including as a
commercial fisherman, a dock worker, a paralegal, a cook, and a pastry
chef.
In the mid-1970s, unhappy with the direction New York
theater was taking, he turned to journalism, an early interest--he had been an
editor on his high school newspaper. From 1976 to 1991 he worked as a foreign
correspondent for the International Herald
Tribune, the Chicago Tribune,
the Miami Herald, and The
Philadelphia Inquirer. Based in Paris and then Mexico, he reported
on Europe, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, Latin America, and the
Caribbean.
His articles have appeared in a wide variety of
newspapers and magazines, including the International Herald
Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer,
the Miami Herald, the Chicago
Tribune, the Los Angeles
Times, Time, Partisan
Review, Harper's, The
New York Times
Magazine, Audubon, Food
& Wine, Gourmet, Bon
Apetit,
and Parade.
He is a member of
Phi Beta Kappa. In addition to numerous guest lectures at Columbia University
School of Journalism, Yale University, Colby College, Grinnell College, the
University of Dayton, and various other schools, he has taught a two-week
creative writing class in Assisi, Italy; led a one-week intensive non-fiction
workshop in Devon, England for the Arvon Foundation; and guest lectured all
over the world on history, writing, environmental issues, and other subjects.
In spring 2007, he was the Harman writer-in-residence at Baruch College, teaching
a fourteen-week honors course titled "Journalism and the Literary
Imagination."
He has had 35 books published including
fiction, nonfiction, and children's books. His books have been translated into
twenty-five languages and he often illustrates them himself.
