Emily Fridlund

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Emily Fridlund (* 1979 ) is an American writer.

Life

Origin and education

Emily Fridlund was born in 1979 and grew up in Edina , Minnesota , close to her grandparents. She describes herself as a “city girl” who grew up in the suburbs of the Twin Cities metropolitan area as the middle of three children. Her parents were camping enthusiasts, so Fridlund spent a lot of time outdoors, especially on the north shore of Lake Superior , Minnesota.

Fridlund attended St. Olaf College in Northfield , Minnesota, and then Principia College in Elsah, Illinois , from which she graduated with a bachelor's degree. She studied at Washington University , where she earned a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in the English Department in 2004 with her thesis A Ghoul in my Bed . After that she taught at her university. Fridlund also lived for several years in Los Angeles , where she studied at the University of Southern California (USC). In 2014 she completed her doctoral thesis in literature and creative writing there.

First short stories and successful debut novel

Fridlund made his first steps as an author by writing short stories. Her works have appeared in various magazines, including a. in ZYZZYVA ( Lock Jaw , 2014), Boston Review ( Expecting , 2004), Southwest Review, FiveChapters, New Orleans Review, Sou'wester, and The Portland Review . Fridlund describes herself as a rather slow-working writer who does not use sketches when writing her texts . “Probably I think in terms of language - especially rhythm, the rhythm of sentences - more than anything else,” says Fridlund, who often works from sentence to sentence, which she herself sees as a difficult way of working.

In 2017 Fridlund published her debut novel History of Wolves , for which she was financially supported by a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for feminist projects. The story focuses on a 14-year-old teenager who grew up isolated in a former commune in a small town in northern Minnesota. It is only through the friendship with a newly arrived family of professors, for whom she works as a babysitter, that she feels a sense of belonging. But when the girl is shunned by the young family, she fights desperately to be accepted by her again, with devastating consequences.

The first chapter of History of Wolves is originally based on a short story of the same name that Fridlund had written for a writing workshop at the University of Southern California, where she was also working on her doctoral thesis at the time. In this, Linda, the main character from the later novel, is confronted with a new teacher from California who gives her the eponymous story about wolves, but is later arrested on suspicion of child pornography . According to Fridlund, he wrote the short story relatively quickly for her circumstances, but revised it for several years. In 2013, the publication earned her the Southwest Review's McGinnis-Ritchie Award . Fridlund found the character of Linda "interesting, difficult and strange" enough to dedicate her own novel project to her. She also missed the change of seasons in California and the forests in her native Minnesota. Then she invented the place "Loose River" for her debut novel, which she located west of Duluth and north of Brainerd . The camping trips from her childhood served as inspiration for Fridlund. Years later, she also traveled to northern Minnesota to research her novel. Fridlund gave the first draft to his friend Aimee Bender , with whom she had studied in California and to whom she later dedicated the novel.

History of Wolves was shortlisted for the British Man Booker Prize in the year it was published , making the 38-year-old author known to an international audience. The National Public Radio praised Fridlunds debut as "rousing debut" while the critic Megan Hustad ( New York Times ) , "a novel of ideas" described him as who like "clever Pulp " read and History of Wolves as a "page-turner of skill and calibration ”. In addition to Aimee Bender, Fridlund's painful Bildungsroman also received approval from fellow American authors such as T. C. Boyle and Ben Marcus . In 2018, History of Wolves was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction . A year later, Fridlund's novel was shortlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award .

Private life and further literary work

Emily Fridlund is married and lives in the Finger Lakes area of New York State . In the summer of 2017, she became the mother of a son. Fridlund teaches at Cornell University , where she also did research on simultaneity in the modernist and contemporary epic of women .

In October 2017 the publisher Sarabande Books published Catapult, a first collection of eleven short stories by Fridlund. Publishers Weekly reviewed the volume as a "cunning and surprising collection of characters facing acute but everyday struggles in relationships that feel choked and realistic." For the cover story, Fridlund received the publisher's own Mary McCarthy Prize in 2015. Catapult tells of the relationship between a young person and her Christian friend, both of whom share the theme of time travel , while his parents mistakenly assume that they are sexually active.

Fridlund is currently working on another novel that will deal with infertility, climate change and the disappearance of a child.

Works

Novels

Anthologies

Awards

  • 2013: McGinnis-Ritchie Award for History of Wolves (Best Short Story)
  • 2015: Mary McCarthy Prize for Catapult (Best Short Story)
  • 2018: Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction for History of Wolves

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Christa Lawler: 'Reads like smart pulp': Minnesota author pens debut novel 'A History of Wolves'. ( Memento from October 14, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: Duluth News Tribune , March 2, 2017; accessed on October 13, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Jill Owens: Powell's Interview: Emily Fridlund, Author of 'History of Wolves'. In: powells.com , January 6, 2017; accessed on October 13, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Laurie Hertzel: A history of 'History of Wolves'. In: Star Tribune , September 19, 2017, p. E1.
  4. ↑ Emily Fridlund: A Ghoul in My Bed. In: World Cat ; accessed on October 13, 2017.
  5. ↑ Emily Fridlund. In: Boston Review , July 3, 2012; accessed on October 14, 2017.
  6. ↑ a b c Profile of Emily Fridlund. In: cornell.edu ; accessed on October 13, 2017.
  7. ^ Zack Ravas: Stories We Tell When We Won't See What's in Front of Us: Q&A with Emily Fridlund . In: ZYZZYVA , April 13, 2017; accessed on October 13, 2017.
  8. ↑ Emily Fridlund: Expecting. In: Boston Review , July 3, 2012; accessed on October 14, 2017.
  9. ^ The 2013 McGinnis-Ritchie Award. ( Memento from May 17, 2019 in the Internet Archive ). In: Southwest Review ; accessed on October 14, 2017.
  10. ↑ Michael Schaub: Beautiful, Icy 'History Of Wolves' Transcends Genre. In: NPR.org , January 3, 2017; accessed on October 14, 2017.
  11. ↑ Megan Hustad: A Novel's Sheltered Girl Seeks Her Identity Among Messed-Up Adults . In: The New York Times , January 6, 2017; accessed on October 14, 2017.
  12. ↑ Fiction Book Review: Catapult by Emily Fridlund. In: Publishers Weekly ; accessed on October 14, 2017.
  13. ^ Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. In: sarabandebooks.org ; accessed on October 14, 2017.
  14. ↑ Emily Fridlund interview. In: themanbookerprize.com , August 19, 2017; accessed on October 13, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Fridlund, Emily
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1979