Simon Van Booy
Encyclopedia
Novel & Short Stories
He has written two collections of short stories, The Secret Lives of People in Love (2011 Finalist Award for The Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature) and Love Begins in Winter, which won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story AwardFrank O'Connor International Short Story Award
The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award is a literary award for short story collections. At 35,000 euro for the best book of short stories it claims to be the world's largest prize for a short story collection. Each year, roughly sixty books are longlisted, with either four or six books...
, the world's richest short story prize. The New York Times said that “Incurable romantics will savor Simon Van Booy’s tender, Maupassant-like fables….” While the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
said of Van Booy’s, The Secret Lives of People in Love” [that], “One worries, after reading a debut short-story collection this breathtaking, what Simon Van Booy could possibly do for an encore. Write something longer?”
Van Booy’s first novel, Everything Beautiful Began After, is set for release in the U.S., and the U.K. in July 2011.
Philosophy Books
Van Booy is also the editor of three volumes of philosophy, entitled Why We Fight, Why We Need Love, and Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter, which The EconomistThe Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
said “have an instinctive appeal.” The Wall Street Journal described Van Booy’s books as “brimming with thoughts from history's pre-eminent ponderers.”
Essays
Van Booy’s essays have been published in newspapers internationally, including The New York TimesThe 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...
, the New York Post, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Mail, and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. They have also been broadcast on National Public Radio. Van Booy’s essays cover topics such as fashion, literacy, history, travel, and living with his daughter as a single-parent.
Stage & Screen
In 2011, Van Booy delivered his first full-length stage comedy, and wrote an award-winning short film for the Morgans Hotel GroupMorgans Hotel Group
Morgans Hotel Group is a hospitality company that owns & operates boutique hotels as well as acquiring and redeveloping in the United States and Europe....
called "Love Is Like Life But Longer," directed by Poppy de Villeneuve
Poppy de Villeneuve
is a director and photographer.-Early life:Poppy was born in Hampstead, London and grew up in the countryside of West Sussex in England...
, and starring Jeremy Strong
Jeremy Strong
Jeremy Strong is a children's author. He has published 77 children's novels. After an eventful childhood Strong left school in 1968 and studied English at York University. He held various vacation jobs, including the infamous bakery where he put the jam in doughnuts. After university he became a...
, Maya Kazan, and Joan Copeland
Joan Copeland
Joan Copeland is an American actress and the younger sister of celebrated playwright Arthur Miller. She began her career appearing in theatre in New York City during the mid 1940s. She moved into television and film during the 1950s while still maintaining an active stage career...
.
Teaching and Lecturing
Van Booy lectures frequently at schools, universities, and libraries in the United States, the United Kingdom, and in China. He teaches part-time at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and at Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus. He is an advocate of education as a means of social reform, and involved in the Rutgers University Early College Humanities program (REaCH) for young adults living in under-served communities.Design
In 2009, Van Booy’s collection of short stories, Love Begins in Winter, was launched at Partners & Spade in New York City, a studio and storefront which “produces films, books, apparel, and conceptual products as well as marketing and branding projects for select corporate clients.” For the launch, Van Booy was the curator of an exhibition of props and dioramas of dramatic scenes from his short story collection, and the collection included custom-made stethoscopes (containing quotes from Van Booy’s stories) and vintage RenaultRenault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
workshop posters, all designed by Van Booy. Since 2009, Partners & Spade have carried Van Booy’s “custom vintage Antarctic explorers’ skis,” and cold-weather hats, which he designed to support research in Antarctic regions and raise awareness for the Scott Polar Research Institute
Scott Polar Research Institute
The Scott Polar Research Institute is a centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology worldwide. It is a sub-department of the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge, located on Lensfield Road in the south of Cambridge ....
at University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
.