Each Vagabond by Name (Littell) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—Oct. 29, 1976
• Where—Connellsville, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Dayton; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—Maplewood, New Jersey


Margo Orlando Littell grew up in a small southwestern Pennsylvania town where crumbling mansions are all that remain of the coal-and-coke wealth from the early twentieth century, when the town led the United States in millionaires per capita. Now, nearly half the population lives at or below the poverty level, and haunting, once-splendid buildings in the old downtown can be purchased for a song.

After fifteen years of living in New York City, Barcelona, and Northern California, she now lives in northern New Jersey with her husband and two little girls. Still, southwestern Pennsylvania is the place that inspires almost all her fiction.

She is driven to write about characters who are rooted to a place and who, even if they succeed at leaving, feel pulled toward home for one reason or another. She finds inspiration in odd rummage-sale finds, visits to her hometown of Connellsville, PA, and newspaper articles that give a glimpse of quiet struggles and preoccupations that are just to the side of the expected thing.

The winner of the University of New Orleans Publishing Lab Prize, Each Vagabond by Name is her first novel. (From the author.)

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