Author Bio
• Birth—1949
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Cornell University; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Awards—Gotham Award, 1991
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Richard Price is an American novelist and screenwriter, known for the books The Wanderers (1974), Clockers (1992), Lush Life (2008), and The Whites (2015, writing under the pen name of Harry Brandt).
Early life
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid," Price was born in the Bronx, New York City and grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967 and obtained a B.A. from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia University. He also did graduate work at Stanford University.
He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale University, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, receiving the academy's Award in Literature that year.
Novels
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a film in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992), nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, was praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and character development. In 1995, it was made into a film directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Screen plays
Price has written numerous screenplays including The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1993), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000).
He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price won the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2008 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of that series. He wrote the screenplay for the 2015 film Child 44. He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes. His eight part HBO mini series CRIME began filming in Sept. 2014
Price did uncredited work on the film American Gangster, wrote and conceptualized the 18-minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Other
He has published articles in the New York Times, Esquire, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone and others.
In July 2010, a group art show inspired by Lush Life was held in nine galleries in New York City.
Personal life
Price lives in Harlem in New York City, and is married to the journalist Lorraine Adams. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/22/2015.)