Dave Eggers

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Dave Eggers

Eggers at the 2007 Brooklyn Book Festival
Born March 12, 1970 (1970-03-12) (age 39)
Boston, Massachusetts
Pen name Daniel O'Mara, Lucy Thomas, Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, others
Occupation writer, editor, publisher
Nationality  United States
Genres fiction, memoir, humor
Official website

Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher.

Contents

[edit] Life

Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was an attorney and his mother a school teacher. When Eggers was still a child, the family moved to the upscale suburb of Lake Forest, near Chicago. He attended high school there, and was a classmate of the actor Vince Vaughn.[1]

Eggers attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, intending to get a degree in journalism.[2] But his studies were interrupted by the sudden death of both of his parents in 1991 – his mother from stomach cancer, and his father from brain and lung cancer. These events were chronicled in his first book, the lightly fictionalized A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. At the time, Eggers was 21, and his younger brother Toph was 8. Eggers's two older siblings were unable to commit to the care of Toph; his older brother had a full-time job and his sister was enrolled in law school. As a result, Eggers took responsibility for raising Toph.

Eggers left the University of Illinois and moved to Berkeley, California with Toph and his girlfriend Kirsten. They initially moved in with Eggers's sister and her roommate, but eventually found a place in another part of town, which they paid for with money left to them by their parents. Toph attended a small private school, and Eggers did temp work and freelance graphic design for a local newspaper. Eventually, with his friend David Moodie, he took over a local free newspaper titled Cups. This gradually evolved into the satirical magazine Might.

Eggers currently lives in San Francisco and is married to the writer Vendela Vida.[3] In October 2005, Vida gave birth to a daughter, October Adelaide Eggers Vida.[4]

Eggers's brother Bill is a researcher who has worked for several conservative think tanks, doing research on privatization.[5] His sister, Beth, claimed that Eggers grossly understated her role in raising their brother Toph and made use of her journals in writing A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius without compensating her.[6] She later recanted her claims in a posting on her brother's own website McSweeney's Internet Tendency, referring to the incident as "a really terrible LaToya Jackson moment".[7] On March 1, 2002, the New York Post reported that Beth, then a lawyer in Modesto, California, had committed suicide.[8] Eggers briefly spoke about his sister's death during a 2002 fan interview for McSweeney's.[9]

Eggers was one of three 2008 TED Prize recipients.[10] His TED Prize wish: for community members to personally engage with local public schools.[11][12]

[edit] Literary work

Eggers began writing as a Salon.com editor and founded Might magazine, while also writing a comic strip called Smarter Feller (originally Swell, then Smart Feller) for SF Weekly.[13] His first book was a memoir (with fictional elements), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000). It focuses on the author's struggle to raise his younger brother in San Francisco following the sudden deaths of their parents. The book quickly became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. The memoir was praised for its originality, idiosyncratic self-referencing, and for several innovative stylistic elements. Early printings of the 2001 trade-paperback edition were published with a lengthy, apologetic postscript entitled "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making".

In 2002, Eggers published his first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, a story about a frustrating attempt to give away money to deserving people while haphazardly traveling the globe. An expanded and revised version was released as Sacrament in 2003 and retitled You Shall Know Our Velocity! for its Vintage imprint distribution. He has since published a collection of short stories, How We Are Hungry, and three politically themed serials for Salon.com.[14] In November 2005, Eggers published Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated, compiling the book of interviews with exonerees once sentenced to death. The book was compiled with Lola Vollen, "a physician specializing in the aftermath of large-scale human rights abuses" and "a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of International Studies and a practicing clinician."[15] Novelist Scott Turow wrote the introduction to Surviving Justice. Eggers's most recent novel, What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (McSweeney's, 2006), was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.[16] Eggers is also the editor of the Best American Nonrequired Reading series, an annual anthology of short stories, essays, journalism, satire, and alternative comics.

Eggers is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house. McSweeney's produces a quarterly literary journal, McSweeney's, first published in 1998; a monthly journal, The Believer, which debuted in 2003 and is edited by wife Vida; and, beginning in 2005, a quarterly DVD magazine, Wholphin. Other works include The Future Dictionary of America, Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, and the "Dr. and Mr. Haggis-On-Whey" children's books of literary nonsense, which Eggers writes with his younger brother. Ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Eggers wrote an essay about the US national team and soccer in the United States for The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, a book published with aid of the journal Granta, that contained essays about each competing team in the tournament.

Eggers in October 2008

Eggers currently teaches writing in San Francisco at 826 Valencia, a nonprofit tutoring center and writing school for children that he cofounded in 2002. Eggers has recruited volunteers to operate similar programs in Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, Chicago, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, all under the auspices of the nonprofit organization 826 National.[17] In 2006, he appeared at a series of fundraising events, dubbed the Revenge of the Book–Eaters tour, to support these programs. The Chicago show, at the Park West theatre, featured Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard. Other performers on the tour included Sufjan Stevens, Jon Stewart, Davy Rothbart, and David Byrne.[18] In September 2007, the Heinz Family Foundation awarded Eggers a $250,000 Heinz Award (given to recognize "extraordinary achievements by individuals") in the Arts and Humanities.[19] In accordance with Eggers's wishes, the award money was all given to 826 National.[20]

Eggers was one of the original contributors to ESPN The Magazine and helped create its section titled "The Jump". He also acted as the first "Answer Guy", a column that still runs (without his involvement) in the publication.[21]

[edit] Musical contributions

  • Eggers designed the artwork for Thrice's album Vheissu.[22]
  • Eggers can be heard talking with Spike Jonze during "The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton," the final track on Beck's 2006 album The Information. The third section of the track features Eggers and Jonze responding to Beck's question, "What would the ultimate record that ever could possibly be made sound like?"[23]
  • Eggers contributed lyrics to the song "The Ghost of Rita Gonzolo" on One Ring Zero's 2004 album As Smart as We Are.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Nonfiction

[edit] Fiction

[edit] Humor books

  • Giraffes? Giraffes! (as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, co-authored with Christopher Eggers) (2003)
  • Your Disgusting Head (as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, co-authored with Christopher Eggers) (2004)
  • Animals of the Ocean, in Particular the Giant Squid (as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, co-authored with Christopher Eggers) (2006)

[edit] Other

  • Jokes Told in Heaven About Babies (as Lucy Thomas) (2003)
  • Salon.com serials: "The Unforbidden Is Compulsory Or, Optimism", "The Fishmonger Returns", and "New Hampshire Is for Lovers" (2004)
  • Screenplay adaptation of the children's book Where the Wild Things Are
  • Screenplay for Away We Go, cowritten with wife Vendela Vida

[edit] As editor or contributor (non-McSweeney's publications)

[edit] References

  1. ^ ""FoE! Log #2:Dave Eggers, Vince Vaughn and Me"". My Manifesto, by Gary Baum. 2000-03-06. http://www.aphrodigitaliac.com/mm/archive/2000/03/06/. Retrieved on 2007-02-21. 
  2. ^ ""Four prize-winning authors taking part in U. of I. series that begins Feb. 8" by Andrea Lynn". News Bureau, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 2007-01-23. http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/07/0123authors.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-16. 
  3. ^ ""Vendela Vida floats amid S.F. literati but keeps feet, attitude firmly planted" by Joshunda Sanders". San Francisco Chronicle. 2003-08-27. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/08/27/DD126631.DTL. Retrieved on 2007-02-22. 
  4. ^ ""Different worlds: The many lives—novelist, social activist, literary innovator, teacher—of Dave Eggers" by Susan Larson". The Times-Picayune [New Orleans]. 2007-02-06. http://www.nola.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/living-0/117074735842110.xml&coll=1. Retrieved on 2007-02-22. 
  5. ^ "William D. Eggers". Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. undated. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/eggers.htm. Retrieved on 2007-02-19. 
  6. ^ ""FoE! Log #6: The Beth Eggers Exclusive (And Some Other Stuff)"". My Manifesto, by Gary Baum. April 17, 2000. http://www.aphrodigitaliac.com/mm/archive/2000/04/17/. Retrieved on 2007-02-19. 
  7. ^ ""FoE! Log #13: A Very Special Edition of The FoE! Log"". My Manifesto, by Gary Baum. July 31, 2000. http://www.aphrodigitaliac.com/mm/archive/2000/07/31/. Retrieved on 2007-11-16.  Note: The original page to which this source refers has since been removed from McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
  8. ^ ""More Heartbreak for Author" by Richard Johnson, with Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson". PageSix.com (New York Post online edition) at iWon. February 28, 2002. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:NALYiivf9AEJ:page6.com/story/more%2Bheartbreak%2Bauthor+%22More+Heartbreak+for+Author%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us. Retrieved on 2008-04-02.  (Google cache)
  9. ^ ""Readers Interview Dave Eggers"". McSweeney's Internet Tendency. [2002]. http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/interview/readers_de.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-19. 
  10. ^ ""TED Blog: Announcing 2008 TED Prize Winners"". [2007]. http://blog.ted.com/2007/11/announcing_2008.php. Retrieved on 2007-11-21. 
  11. ^ "Talks Dave Eggers: 2008 TED Prize wish: Once Upon a School" (video). TED Conference Website. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/233. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. 
  12. ^ "TEDPrize 2008 Winner :: Dave Eggers". TED Prize Website. http://www.tedprize.org/?page_id=7. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. 
  13. ^ ""Growing Up in Public: David Eggers and Ann Powers" by Mark Athitakis". SF Weekly. 2000-03-08. http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-03-08/culture/growing-up-in-public/full. Retrieved on 2007-02-21. 
  14. ^ ""Introducing (again) Dave Eggers"". Salon.com. [2004]. http://archive.salon.com/books/eggers/index.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-21. 
  15. ^ ""Surviving Justice: About the Editors"". Voice of Witness. undated. http://www.voiceofwitness.com/abouted.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-20. 
  16. ^ ""NBCC Awards Finalists"". The National Book Critics Circle, bookcritics.org. undated. http://www.bookcritics.org/?go=finalists. Retrieved on 2007-03-11. 
  17. ^ ""826 Chapters"". 826 National. undated. http://www.826national.org/chapters/. Retrieved on 2007-02-20. 
  18. ^ ""Revenge of the Book–Eaters"". Bookeaters.org. 2006. http://www.bookeaters.org/. Retrieved on 2007-02-20. 
  19. ^ The Heinz Awards, Dave Eggers profile
  20. ^ "" 'We never feel any sort of ownership' " by John Freeman". Guardian Unlimited. 14 September 2007. http://books.guardian.co.uk/interviews/story/0,,2169276,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-15.  An interview to Eggers
  21. ^ ""Making It Up as We Go Along"". ESPN the Magazine. 11 March 2008. http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3288256. Retrieved on 2008-09-29. 
  22. ^ Vheissu (liner notes), Island Records, 2005. 
  23. ^ "" 'I'm always in danger of being dismissed as a clown' " by Chris Salmon". Guardian Unlimited. 2006-09-21. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1877277,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-21. 

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