Aquarium (Vann)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 19, 1966
• Where—Adak Island, Alaska, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.F.A., Cornell University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Coventry, England, UK


David Vann is an American born author and creative writing professor at the University of Warwick in England. Vann has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and has been a National Endowment of the Arts fellow, a Wallace Stegner fellow, and a John L’Heureux fellow.

Born in the Aleutian Islands, Vann spent his childhood in Ketchikan, Alaska. For twelve years, no agent would send out his first book, Legend of a Suicide, so he went to sea and became a captain and boat builder. Legend of a Suicide, a largely autobiographical novel, was finally published in 2008 and has won ten prizes, including the Prix Medicis Etranger in France for best foreign novel, the Premi Llibreter in Spain for best foreign novel, the Grace Paley Prize, a California Book Award, and the L’Express readers’ prize (France).

His work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers. His books have been selected for the New Yorker Book Club, the Times Book Club, and the Samlerens Bogklub in Denmark. He has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, CNN, PBS, National Geographic, and E! Entertainment.

Awards
2007 - Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction - Legend of a Suicide/Sukkwan Island
2008 - California Book Award - Legend of a Suicide/Sukkwan Island
2009 - AWP Nonfiction Award - Last Day On Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter
2010 - Prix Medicis Etranger (France) - Legend of a Suicide/Sukkwan Island
2011 - Premi Llibreter (Spain) - Legend of a Suicide/Sukkwan Island
2013 - St. Francis College Literary Prize - Dirt

Works
2005 - A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea
2008 - Legend of a Suicide: Stories and a Novella
2011 - Caribou Island
2011 - Last Day On Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter
2012 - Dirt
2013 - Goat Mountain
2014 - Crocodile: Memoirs from a Mexican Drug-Running Port (in Spanish)
2015 - Aquarium
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/23/2015.)