Life

D. J. Waldie lives in Lakewood, California, in the house his parents bought in 1946. He was born in 1948.

In the mid-1970s, he taught at California State University Long Beach in the Department of Comparative Literature and the University Honors Program.

Waldie began his career in public administration in Lakewood in December 1977. He served as the city's Public Information Officer between 1981 and 2010. He retired as Deputy City Manager of Lakewood in September 2010.

He has written for the Los Angeles Times, where he is a contributing editor. He also is contributing writer at Los Angeles magazine.

In 2010, his memoir of growing up in suburban Los Angeles County in the 1950s was optioned by James Franco for a film project.

Awards

• 1998 Whiting Writers' Award
  Whiting Writers' Award
  The Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2007, winners receive US $50,000.-External links:**...
  
  
• 1995 National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   fellowship
• 1994 California Arts Council
  California Arts Council
  The California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento. Its eleven council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature...
  
  fellowship

Works

• "An Ordinary Place", Los Angeles Now

Poems

• Sympathy: 5 poems, Greenhouse Review Press, 1977
• The grain is unlocked. The grain unravels, Greenhouse Review Press, 1977

Contributor To

• Writing Los Angeles, Library of America, 2002
• My California, Angel City Press/California Arts Council, 2004
• California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century, Heyday Books/California Council for the Humanities, 2004
• Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, Trinity University Press, 2006
• The Suburb Reader, Routledge, 2006
• Cities: Architecture and Society - 10. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura, la Biennale de Venezia, 2006
• Seeing Los Angeles: A Different Look at a Different City, Otis/Seismicity Editions, 2007
• An Atlas of Radical Cartography, The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press)
• The People and Promise of California, Longman, 2008
• Tell Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life, Borealis Books/Minnesota Historical Society, 2008
• Blackwell Companion to California, Blackwell, 2008
• Los Angeles: Eine Stadt im Film, Osterreichischen FilmMuseums, 2008
• The Lost Origins of the Essay, Graywolf Press, 2009
• Common Place: The American Motel, Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2010

Film Research

• The War from the Air, Nova/PBS. 1975
• Hitler’s Secret Weapon, Nova/PBS, 1976
• Will Rogers: America in the ‘20s, Will Rogers Foundation. 1977

External links

• "'The compass of possibilities': Re-Mapping the Suburbs of Los Angeles in the Writings of D.J. Waldie", European Journal of American Studies (Online), Neil Campbell. October 2011
• "Reading L.A.: D.J. Waldie's spare, poetic 'Holy Land'", Los Angeles Times, Christopher Hawthorne, July 2011
• "D. J. Waldie's Holy Land: Redeeming the Spiritual Geogrpahy of Suburbia", Renascence: Eassys on Values in Literature, Carissa Turner Smith, June 2011
• "An excerpt from Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir", California Authors, Kate Cohen, March 7, 2005
• Where We Are, KCET SoCal Connected
• "D. J. Waldie, Bard of Lakewood", Next American City, interview by Hilary Kaplan, January 2005
• "Rush", from Driving Passions, KCET TV, 2006
• "An excert from Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir",Writing Los Angeles, Library of America, 2005