Innocents and Others (Spiotta) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—January 16, 1966
• Where—state of New Jersey, USA
• Raised—Los Angeles, California
• Education—Evergreen State College
• Awards—finalist, National Book Awards and National Book Critics Circle Award
• Currently—lives in Syracuse, New York


Dana Spiotta is the author of several novels: Innocents and Others (2016); Stone Arabia (2011), a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; Eat the Document (2006), a National Book Award finalist; and Lightning Field (2001), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Spiotta was born in New Jersey, moving to and from various suburbs until her family settled in Los Angeles when she was 13. The city, especially its film industry, impressed itself on her and later became the setting, even the subject, of her novels.

She attended Columbia University for two years but dropped out during the chaotic period of her parents' divorce. To support herself, she headed to Seattle, Oregon, eventually enrolling at Evergreen State College where she studied labor history and creative writing.

On a whim almost, she and a friend cold-called a number in New York City—a number they found on the back of Quarterly, the literary journal. When its editor, the famed writer-editor Gordon Lish, happened to pick up the phone, the girls ended up being offered jobs as managing editors, and the two headed to New York. It was while working at Quarterly that Spiotta met Don DeLillo, who became both mentor and friend. (Years later, Spiotta was referred to as "DeLillo with a vagina," meant, it's utterer said, as a compliment.)

Her second novel Eat the Document (2006)—published while working at an upstate restaurant (which she and her then-husband owned)—brought her to the attention of writers and critics. She was offered a teaching position in the M.F.A. program at Syracuse University, where she remains today. Her colleagues include such notables as George Saunders and Mary Karr (who called her "whip smart and tirelessly generous").

Spiotta has been a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. She lives in Syracuse with her daughter and her second husband. (Adapted from Wikipedia and New York Times. Retrieved 3/10/2016.)