Robert Olen Butler
Encyclopedia
Robert Olen Butler is an American fiction
writer
. His short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for fiction in 1993
.
, Illinois
, to Robert Olen Butler Sr., an actor and theater professor who became the chairman of the theater department of Saint Louis University
, and his wife, the former Lucille Frances Hall, an executive secretary.
Butler attended Northwestern University
as a theater
major (B.S.
, 1967) and switched to playwriting
at the University of Iowa
(M.A.
, 1969).
Butler served in Vietnam
from 1969 to 1971, first as a counter-intelligence
special agent for the Army
and later as a translator
. He rose to the rank of sergeant in the Army Military Intelligence Corps. His experiences during that period have informed his writings, and as a result, in 1987 Butler received the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award from the Vietnam Veterans of America
for outstanding contributions to American culture by a veteran. "My greatest pleasure in life was at 2 in the morning to wander out into the steamy back alleys of Saigon
, where nobody ever seemed to sleep, and just walk the alleys and crouch in the doorways with the people," Butler told The New York Times
in 1993. "The Vietnamese were the warmest, most open and welcoming people I've ever met, and they just invited me into their homes and into their culture and into their lives."
After working as a steel mill laborer, a taxi driver, and a substitute teacher in high schools in the years following his tour of duty in Vietnam, Butler joined Fairchild Publications, where he worked on the staffs of trade publications such as Electronic News. From 1975 until 1985, he was the editor-in-chief of Fairchild's Energy User News (now Energy & Power Management).
Butler began writing novels on the Long Island Railroad while working as a publicist for Fairchild Publications. "Every word of my first four published novels was written on a legal pad, by hand, on my lap, on the Long Island Railroad as I commuted back and forth from Sea Cliff
to Manhattan
," Butler has said about his early writing.
The author's first novel was The Alleys of Eden, which was published in 1981 by Horizon Press after being rejected by 21 publishers. Its protagonist is an American deserter who decides to stay in Vietnam, as Butler's one-time writing professor Anatole Broyard
wrote in The New York Times, "because, with all its troubles, Vietnam seems to him to retain more of its integrity, its sense of self, than the America he has left behind."
Prior to the publication of The Alleys of Eden, Butler had written, by his estimation, "five ghastly novels, about forty dreadful short stories, and twelve truly awful full-length plays, all of which have never seen the light of day and never will."
Butler has always been a controversial artist, seemingly reinventing himself with each new novel or short story collection. His shape-shifting often polarizes reviewers, as was the case with Butler’s second novel Sun Dogs (Horizon, 1983), which The New York Times described as having "some powerful moments, some engrossing scenes and deft touches, but there is little momentum, no satisfying pattern, none of the magic of synergy." Conversely, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram lauded the book as “full of power and energy…mov[ing] from the most feverish of prose to a flatness and sparseness that is reminiscent of the best of Chandler and Hammett. And most importantly, he has something to say… Butler is an intelligent novelist who cares about his characters. He is skillful enough to make the reader feel the same way. It is not often that we get the chance to witness the birth of something this important.”
Butler's stories have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker
, Esquire
, Harper's
, The Atlantic Monthly
, GQ
, and Zoetrope: All-Story
. He has had stories included in a combined twelve editions of The Best American Short Stories
, New Stories From the South
, and numerous college literature textbooks. Butler has also written screenplays for film and television, most of them based on other writers' material.
Butler's short–story collections Tabloid Dreams (1996) and Had a Good Time (2004) take their inspiration from popular culture. The stories in Tabloid Dreams were spun from the titles of outlandish articles in supermarket tabloids. Had a Good Time builds its narratives around the images on vintage American picture postcards, which Butler has collected for more than a decade. One example is the tale "Mother in the Trenches", first published in Harper's in February 2003. It traces the journey of Mrs. Jack Gaines, a prosperous matron, from her comfortable home to the battlefields of World War I
France, in order to convince her soldier son to come home; the story's basis is a period postcard that depicts a stout, middle-aged woman wearing dark clothes and a cloche hat.
Again the critical response varied dramatically. While the San Francisco Chronicle
said that the stories "feel like a literary parlor game," the Boston Globe raved, that it was full of “crisp writing, marvelous imagining, the discussion of large, existential questions that are as central to life now as they were a hundred years ago.”
Severance, his 2006 collection of 240-word short stories about the post-beheading thoughts of decapitated individuals (from Nicole Brown Simpson
to Louis XVI to the author himself) was the basis of Severance, a one-act play by David Jette. It was produced in 2007 at McCadden Place Theatre in Los Angeles
. At the time, Butler described Severance as his best and most ambitious book.
This was the first of an extended venture into defining and exploring the short short story form. His companion collection, Intercourse, comprising 100 very short stories, revealed the inner monologues of couples (often famous) engaged in sexual intercourse. Weegee Stories, presenting the inner monologues of the subjects of 60 iconic photographs of Arthur “Weegee” Fellig, continued his interest in the form. He also published a theory of the short short story in Narrative Magazine.
As further evidence of his predilection for self-reinvention, in 2009 he published Hell, a “roaring satire” of a novel set entirely in the underworld. His 2011 novel, A Small Hotel, is described by Donna Seaman of Booklist, the American Library Association’s magazine, as a “sexy novel of psychological suspense.” She goes on to say, “Butler executes a plot twist of profound proportions in this gorgeously controlled, unnerving, and beautifully revealing tale of the consequences of emotional withholding.”
In 2001, Butler wrote in real-time, a complete short story, “This is Earl Sandt,” from first inspiration to final story, in a webcast of 17 two-hour sessions. As the author explained of the broadcasts, "What we're trying to do here is reproduce for you what is normally hidden behind the veil of private life.". The webcasts, under its webcast title of “Inside Creative Writing,” have become a popular download on iTunes.
Butler taught creative writing at McNeese State University
in Lake Charles, Louisiana
, from 1985 to 2000. He then joined the faculty of Florida State University
as a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor, holding the Michael Shaara
Chair in Creative Writing, where he currently teaches.
in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts
grant, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2001 he won a National Magazine Award
for "Fair Warning," a short story that was published in the journal Zoetrope: All-Story, and, four years later, he won another National Magazine Award for "The One in White," a short story published in The Atlantic Monthly.
In 1993, his first story collection, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
, won the Pulitzer Prize
for fiction. The New York Times praised the book's "startling, dreamlike"
stories about the lives of Vietnamese immigrants living in Louisiana, and said it was "remarkable not for its flaws, but for how beautifully it achieves its daring project of making the Vietnamese real."
The Pulitzer committee said that the stories "raise the literature of the Vietnam conflict to an original and highly personal new level."
Butler also is the judge of the annual Robert Olen Butler Prize
, a short-fiction award founded and sponsored by Del Sol Press
.
On July 1, 1972 Butler married poet
Marylin Geller (now known professionally as Marylin Krepf).
They had one child, Joshua Robert Butler (born 1974), and divorced July 1987.
On July 21, 1987 Butler married Maureen Donlan. They divorced in March 1995.
On 23 April 1995, at Tavern on the Green
restaurant in New York City
, Butler married the novelist and playwright Elizabeth Dewberry (born 1963). The couple ended their marriage in July 2007 (The Washington Post
reported that they were officially divorced on 19 July), according to an email Butler sent to his graduate students and fellow professors at Florida State University regarding Dewberry's decision to leave him for communications mogul Ted Turner
. A controversy arose over the highly personal revelations contained within Butler's email, which was leaked by one of its recipients and subsequently reported on by major international media outlets, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and National Public Radio.
Work
Interviews
Reviews
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. His short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain is a 1992 collection of short stories by Robert Olen Butler. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1993....
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for fiction in 1993
1993 in literature
The year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
.
Early life
Butler was born in Granite CityGranite City, Illinois
Granite City is a city in Madison County, Illinois, United States, part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. At the 2010 census, the population was 29,849, making it the third largest city in the Metro-East and Southern Illinois, behind Alton and Belleville...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, to Robert Olen Butler Sr., an actor and theater professor who became the chairman of the theater department of Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University is a private, co-educational Jesuit university located in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1818 by the Most Reverend Louis Guillaume Valentin Dubourg SLU is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River. It is one of 28 member institutions of the...
, and his wife, the former Lucille Frances Hall, an executive secretary.
Butler attended Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
as a theater
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
major (B.S.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
, 1967) and switched to playwriting
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
(M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
, 1969).
Butler served in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
from 1969 to 1971, first as a counter-intelligence
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
special agent for the Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and later as a translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
. He rose to the rank of sergeant in the Army Military Intelligence Corps. His experiences during that period have informed his writings, and as a result, in 1987 Butler received the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award from the Vietnam Veterans of America
Vietnam Veterans of America
Vietnam Veterans of America Inc. is a national non-profit corporation founded in 1978 in the United States that promotes the interests of United States military veterans of the Vietnam War era. It is funded without any contribution from any branch of government...
for outstanding contributions to American culture by a veteran. "My greatest pleasure in life was at 2 in the morning to wander out into the steamy back alleys of Saigon
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...
, where nobody ever seemed to sleep, and just walk the alleys and crouch in the doorways with the people," Butler told The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in 1993. "The Vietnamese were the warmest, most open and welcoming people I've ever met, and they just invited me into their homes and into their culture and into their lives."
After working as a steel mill laborer, a taxi driver, and a substitute teacher in high schools in the years following his tour of duty in Vietnam, Butler joined Fairchild Publications, where he worked on the staffs of trade publications such as Electronic News. From 1975 until 1985, he was the editor-in-chief of Fairchild's Energy User News (now Energy & Power Management).
Literary career
Robert Olen Butler is the author of 12 novels and six short story collections, including A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In a review for the Guardian newspaper, renowned French author Claire Messud wrote, “The book has attracted such acclaim not simply because it is beautifully and powerfully written, but because it convincingly pulls off an immense imaginative risk. . . . Butler has not entered the significant and ever-growing canon of Vietnam-related fiction (he has long been a member)—he has changed its composition forever.”Butler began writing novels on the Long Island Railroad while working as a publicist for Fairchild Publications. "Every word of my first four published novels was written on a legal pad, by hand, on my lap, on the Long Island Railroad as I commuted back and forth from Sea Cliff
Sea Cliff, New York
The Village of Sea Cliff is a village located within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York. As of the United States 2010 Census, the village population was 4,995...
to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
," Butler has said about his early writing.
The author's first novel was The Alleys of Eden, which was published in 1981 by Horizon Press after being rejected by 21 publishers. Its protagonist is an American deserter who decides to stay in Vietnam, as Butler's one-time writing professor Anatole Broyard
Anatole Broyard
Anatole Paul Broyard was an American writer, literary critic and editor for The New York Times. In addition to his many reviews and columns, he published short stories, essays and two books during his lifetime...
wrote in The New York Times, "because, with all its troubles, Vietnam seems to him to retain more of its integrity, its sense of self, than the America he has left behind."
Prior to the publication of The Alleys of Eden, Butler had written, by his estimation, "five ghastly novels, about forty dreadful short stories, and twelve truly awful full-length plays, all of which have never seen the light of day and never will."
Butler has always been a controversial artist, seemingly reinventing himself with each new novel or short story collection. His shape-shifting often polarizes reviewers, as was the case with Butler’s second novel Sun Dogs (Horizon, 1983), which The New York Times described as having "some powerful moments, some engrossing scenes and deft touches, but there is little momentum, no satisfying pattern, none of the magic of synergy." Conversely, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram lauded the book as “full of power and energy…mov[ing] from the most feverish of prose to a flatness and sparseness that is reminiscent of the best of Chandler and Hammett. And most importantly, he has something to say… Butler is an intelligent novelist who cares about his characters. He is skillful enough to make the reader feel the same way. It is not often that we get the chance to witness the birth of something this important.”
Butler's stories have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, Harper's
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, GQ
GQ (magazine)
GQ is a monthly men's magazine focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books...
, and Zoetrope: All-Story
Zoetrope: All-Story
Zoetrope: All-Story is an American literary magazine that was launched in 1997 by Francis Ford Coppola. Blooming from Francis Coppola's "Crazy Idea Department," All-Story is devoted to showcasing the most promising voices in short-fiction...
. He has had stories included in a combined twelve editions of The Best American Short Stories
Best American Short Stories
The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.-Edward O'Brien:The...
, New Stories From the South
New Stories From the South
New Stories from the South is an annual compilation of short stories published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill and billed as the year's best stories written by Southern writers or about the Southern United States...
, and numerous college literature textbooks. Butler has also written screenplays for film and television, most of them based on other writers' material.
Butler's short–story collections Tabloid Dreams (1996) and Had a Good Time (2004) take their inspiration from popular culture. The stories in Tabloid Dreams were spun from the titles of outlandish articles in supermarket tabloids. Had a Good Time builds its narratives around the images on vintage American picture postcards, which Butler has collected for more than a decade. One example is the tale "Mother in the Trenches", first published in Harper's in February 2003. It traces the journey of Mrs. Jack Gaines, a prosperous matron, from her comfortable home to the battlefields of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
France, in order to convince her soldier son to come home; the story's basis is a period postcard that depicts a stout, middle-aged woman wearing dark clothes and a cloche hat.
Again the critical response varied dramatically. While the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
said that the stories "feel like a literary parlor game," the Boston Globe raved, that it was full of “crisp writing, marvelous imagining, the discussion of large, existential questions that are as central to life now as they were a hundred years ago.”
Severance, his 2006 collection of 240-word short stories about the post-beheading thoughts of decapitated individuals (from Nicole Brown Simpson
Nicole Brown Simpson
Nicole Brown Simpson was a former wife of professional football player O. J. Simpson.- Relationship with O. J. Simpson :...
to Louis XVI to the author himself) was the basis of Severance, a one-act play by David Jette. It was produced in 2007 at McCadden Place Theatre in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. At the time, Butler described Severance as his best and most ambitious book.
This was the first of an extended venture into defining and exploring the short short story form. His companion collection, Intercourse, comprising 100 very short stories, revealed the inner monologues of couples (often famous) engaged in sexual intercourse. Weegee Stories, presenting the inner monologues of the subjects of 60 iconic photographs of Arthur “Weegee” Fellig, continued his interest in the form. He also published a theory of the short short story in Narrative Magazine.
As further evidence of his predilection for self-reinvention, in 2009 he published Hell, a “roaring satire” of a novel set entirely in the underworld. His 2011 novel, A Small Hotel, is described by Donna Seaman of Booklist, the American Library Association’s magazine, as a “sexy novel of psychological suspense.” She goes on to say, “Butler executes a plot twist of profound proportions in this gorgeously controlled, unnerving, and beautifully revealing tale of the consequences of emotional withholding.”
In 2001, Butler wrote in real-time, a complete short story, “This is Earl Sandt,” from first inspiration to final story, in a webcast of 17 two-hour sessions. As the author explained of the broadcasts, "What we're trying to do here is reproduce for you what is normally hidden behind the veil of private life.". The webcasts, under its webcast title of “Inside Creative Writing,” have become a popular download on iTunes.
Butler taught creative writing at McNeese State University
McNeese State University
McNeese State University is a public university located in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the United States. Founded in 1939 as a junior college, McNeese experienced growth due to economic activity in the region. It adopted its present name in 1970....
in Lake Charles, Louisiana
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Lake Charles is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Located in Calcasieu Parish, a major cultural, industrial, and educational center in the southwest region of the state, and one of the most important in...
, from 1985 to 2000. He then joined the faculty of Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
as a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor, holding the Michael Shaara
Michael Shaara
Michael Shaara was an American writer of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction. He was born to Italian immigrant parents in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated from Rutgers University in 1951, and served as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne division...
Chair in Creative Writing, where he currently teaches.
Awards and honors
Butler is a recipient of a Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in fiction and a 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...
grant, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2001 he won a National Magazine Award
National Magazine Award
The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...
for "Fair Warning," a short story that was published in the journal Zoetrope: All-Story, and, four years later, he won another National Magazine Award for "The One in White," a short story published in The Atlantic Monthly.
In 1993, his first story collection, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain is a 1992 collection of short stories by Robert Olen Butler. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1993....
, won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for fiction. The New York Times praised the book's "startling, dreamlike"
stories about the lives of Vietnamese immigrants living in Louisiana, and said it was "remarkable not for its flaws, but for how beautifully it achieves its daring project of making the Vietnamese real."
The Pulitzer committee said that the stories "raise the literature of the Vietnam conflict to an original and highly personal new level."
Butler also is the judge of the annual Robert Olen Butler Prize
Robert Olen Butler Prize
The Robert Olen Butler Prize is a prize for short fiction awarded by Del Sol Press in conjunction with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler, who chooses the winning story. The winning stories are also collected into an annual anthology, The Robert Olen Butler Prize Anthology. As of...
, a short-fiction award founded and sponsored by Del Sol Press
Del Sol Press
Del Sol Press was founded in 2002 by Michael Neff of Web del Sol. The first book published by the press was Michael Brodsky's novel, Detour. Since that time the press has gone on to publish work by Nin Andrews, David Blair, Joan Houlihan, Ander Monson, Don Thompson, Walter Cummins, and Thomas...
.
Marriages
On August 10, 1968, Butler married Carol Supplee. They divorced in January 1972.On July 1, 1972 Butler married poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Marylin Geller (now known professionally as Marylin Krepf).
They had one child, Joshua Robert Butler (born 1974), and divorced July 1987.
On July 21, 1987 Butler married Maureen Donlan. They divorced in March 1995.
On 23 April 1995, at Tavern on the Green
Tavern on the Green
Tavern on the Green was a privately owned American cuisine restaurant located in Central Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in New York City. It remained in operation from 1934 to 2009 under various owners...
restaurant in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Butler married the novelist and playwright Elizabeth Dewberry (born 1963). The couple ended their marriage in July 2007 (The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
reported that they were officially divorced on 19 July), according to an email Butler sent to his graduate students and fellow professors at Florida State University regarding Dewberry's decision to leave him for communications mogul Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
. A controversy arose over the highly personal revelations contained within Butler's email, which was leaked by one of its recipients and subsequently reported on by major international media outlets, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and National Public Radio.
Novels
- The Alleys of Eden (1981)
- Sun Dogs (1982)
- Countrymen of Bones (1983)
- On Distant Ground (1985)
- Wabash (1987)
- The Deuce (1989)
- They Whisper (1994)
- The Deep Green Sea (1997)
- Mr. Spaceman (2000)
- Fair Warning (2002)
- Hell (2009)
- A Small Hotel (2011)
Short story collections
- A Good Scent from a Strange MountainA Good Scent from a Strange MountainA Good Scent from a Strange Mountain is a 1992 collection of short stories by Robert Olen Butler. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1993....
(1992) - Tabloid Dreams (1996)
- Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards (2004)
- Severance (2006)
- Intercourse (2008)
- Weegee Stories (2010)
Other publications
- Introduction to Vietnam War Literature: A Catalogue (1990)
- The Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2004 (2005)
- The Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2005 (2006)
- The Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2007 (2007)
- The Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2008 (2008)
External links
General- Robert Olen Butler's Official Website
- Faculty page at FSU
- Facebook page
- Twitter page
- Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize
Work
- Inside Creative Writing: Watch a Pulitzer Prize Winner Create an Original Story
- Butler article for the U.S. Department of State website about his postcard-inspired fiction
- Links to three stories published in Zoetrope: All-Story
- Excerpt from "Mother in the Trenches"
- Non-fiction article about Saigon, written for Condé Nast TravelerCondé Nast TravelerCondé Nast Traveler is a US magazine published by Condé Nast. It has its origins in a mailing sent out by the Diners Club club beginning in 1953, listing locations that would take the card. It began taking advertising in 1955. In order to attract more advertisers, it became a full-fledged magazine,...
Interviews
- Interview with Dave Weich of Powells.com
- Interview with Jessica Murphy of The Atlantic Monthly
- 1 August 2007 interview with NPR regarding the breakup of his fourth marriage
- Interview with Robert Olen Butler, Quiddity International Literary Journal and Public-Radio Program, September 2009
Reviews