Dave Eggers

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Dave Eggers
Born	March 12, 1970 (1970-03-12) (age 38) 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 http://www.mcsweeneys.net/

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

Contents 1 Life 2 Literary work 3 Musical contributions 4 Bibliography 4.1 Nonfiction 4.2 Fiction 4.3 Humor books 4.4 Other 4.5 As editor or contributor (non-McSweeney's publications) 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Life

Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up in the Chicago, Illinois suburb of Lake Forest (where he was a high-school classmate of the actor Vince Vaughn),^[1] and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.^[2] He lives in San Francisco and is married to the writer Vendela Vida.^[3] In October 2005, Vendela 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 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 and David Byrne.^[18] In September 2007, the Heinz Foundations awarded Eggers a $250,000 Heinz award given to recognize "extraordinary achievements by individuals". The award will be used to fund some of the 826 Valencia writing centers.^[19]

[edit] Musical contributions

• Eggers designed the artwork for Thrice's album, Vheissu.^[20]
• 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?"^[21]
• Eggers contributed lyrics to the song "The Ghost Of Rita Gonzolo" on One Ring Zero's 2004 album As Smart As We Are.
• Eggers contributed whistling to "Little Tornado," a song on Aimee Mann's forthcoming album, Smilers.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Nonfiction

• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000)
• Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers (co-authored with Daniel Moulthrop and Nínive Clements Calegari) (2005)
• Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated (co-compiled with Lola Vollen; with an introduction by Scott Turow) (2005)

[edit] Fiction

• You Shall Know Our Velocity (novel) (2002)
• Sacrament (novel, revised and expanded version of You Shall Know Our Velocity) (2003)
• The Unforbidden is Compulsory; or, Optimism (story) (2004)
• How We Are Hungry (short stories) (2004)
• Short Short Stories (short stories, part of the Pocket Penguin series) (2005)
• What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (novel) (2006)
• How the Water Feels to the Fishes (short stories; part of One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box) (2007)
• The Wild Things (working title) (novel inspired by Where the Wild Things Are, to be released alongside the film) (2009)

[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

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

• Speaking with the Angel: Original Stories, edited by Nick Hornby (Contributor) (2000)
• The Onion Ad Nauseam: The Complete News Archives, Volume 13 (Introduction) (2002)
• The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002 (Selected by, with Joyce Carol Oates and Colson Whitehead) (2002)
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 (Editor, with Michael Cart) (2002)
• The Tenants of Moonbloom, by Edward Lewis Wallant (Reissue of Wallant's 1963 novel) (Introduction) (2003)
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 (Editor; Introduction by Zadie Smith) (2003)
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 (Editor; Introduction by Viggo Mortensen) (2004)
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005 (Editor; Introduction by Beck) (2005)
• Penguin Classics edition of Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme (Introduction) (2005)
• The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey (Contributor) (2006)
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 (Editor; Introduction by Matt Groening) (2006)
• John Currin (Contributor; additional text by John Currin, Norman Bryson, and Alison Gingeras) (2006)
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 (Editor; Introduction by Sufjan Stevens) (2007)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Author page on the McSweeney's website (features a detailed bibliography)
• The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation
• Radio Interview on Bookworm, February 1, 2007
• Interview about 826 National on Public School Insights, Posted May 20, 2008