Bob Shacochis (born September 9, 1951) is an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

, short story writer, and literary journalist. He teaches

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

Writing career

Shacochis was born in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, but grew up in the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

suburb of

McLean MacLean, also spelt Maclean and McLean, is a Goidelic languages, Gaelic surname Mac Gille Eathain, or, Mac Giolla Eóin in Irish language, Irish Gaelic), Eóin being a Gaelic form of Johannes (John (given name), John). The clan surname is an A ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. He was educated at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

and the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...

at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

, and currently teaches creative writing at

. His first short-story collection, ''Easy in the Islands'', was published in 1985 and received the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

in category First Work of Fiction."National Book Awards – 1985"

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...

. Retrieved 2012-03-08. (With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) The stories are set in various

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

locales and reflect the author's experiences as a

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...

volunteer in the

Grenadines The Grenadines is a chain of small islands that lie on a line between the larger islands of Saint Vincent and Grenada in the Lesser Antilles. Nine are inhabited and open to the public (or ten, if the offshore island of Young Island is counted): ...

. His second story collection, ''The Next New World'', widens the author's milieu, containing stories set in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

and the islands of the Caribbean but also in Northern Virginia and the mid-Atlantic coast. In 1993, Shacochis published his first novel, ''Swimming in the Volcano'', which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Heavily concerned with politics, elaborate in style and description, and immersed in descriptions of nature and outdoor pursuits, his fiction reflects the influence of

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

, J.P. Donleavy, and especially

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

. His second novel, ''The Woman Who Lost Her Soul'', was published in 2013. It won the 2014

Dayton Literary Peace Prize The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is an annual United States literary award "recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace" that was first awarded in 2006. Awards are given for adult fiction and non-fiction books published at some point ...

for Fiction.

Journalism

Shacochis has also worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and war correspondent. A longtime culinary aficionado, Shacochis served as a cooking columnist for '' GQ'' magazine, writing the "Dining In" column, which combined often humorous anecdotes with recipes. The "Dining In" columns are collected in ''Domesticity'', a hybrid cookbook/essay collection. He is a contributing editor at ''

Outside Outside or Outsides may refer to: General * Wilderness * Outside (Alaska), any non-Alaska location, as referred to by Alaskans Books and magazines * ''Outside'', a book by Marguerite Duras * ''Outside'' (magazine), an outdoors magazine Film, th ...

'' magazine, and was instrumental, along with other literary journalists recruited by then-editor Mark Bryant, including

Jon Krakauer Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—'' Into the Wild''; ''Into Thin Air''; ''Under the Banner of Heaven''; and '' Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat ...

Tim Cahill Timothy Filiga Cahill (; born 6 December 1979) is an Australian former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder but also played as a striker on many occasions. A box-to-box midfielder, Cahill became recognised for "his ag ...

, and

Bruce Barcott Bruce Barcott is an American editor, environmental journalist and author. He is a contributing editor of '' Outside'' and has written articles for ''The New York Times Magazine'', '' National Geographic'', ''Mother Jones'', ''Sports Illustrated'', ...

, in establishing ''Outsides popular and critical success. Shacochis is also a contributing editor to Harper's, which sent him to

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

in 1994 to cover the uprising against

Jean-Bertrand Aristide Jean-Bertrand Aristide (born 15 July 1953) is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in ...

, the island nation's first democratically elected President, and the subsequent intervention by

US Army Special Forces The United States Army Special Forces (SF), colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force of the United States Army. The Green Berets are geared towards nine doctrinal mis ...

, with whom Shacochis traveled for nearly a year covering the invasion. The experience resulted in ''The Immaculate Invasion'', Shacochis's first full-length book of nonfiction. Shacochis's nonfiction generally fits into the tradition of the

New Journalism New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non ...

popularized by

Tom Wolfe Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...

, and

Hunter S. Thompson Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of '' Hell's Angels'' (1967), a book for which he s ...

in the 1960s and 1970s. ''Kingdoms in the Air'', a collection of Shacochis's travel and adventure essays, was published by

Grove Atlantic Grove Atlantic, Inc. is an American independent publisher, based in New York City. Formerly styled "Grove/Atlantic, Inc.", it was created in 1993 by the merger of Grove Press and Atlantic Monthly Press. As of 2018 Grove Atlantic calls itself "An ...

in 2016.

Bibliography

Nonfiction

* ''Drinking, Smoking and Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times'' (1994) * ''Domesticity: A Gastronomic Interpretation of Love'' (1994) * ''The Immaculate Invasion'' (1999) * ''Conversations with Cuba'' (2001) * ''Kingdoms in the Air: Dispatches from the Far Away'' (2016)

Fiction

* ''Easy in the Islands'' (1985) * ''The Next New World'' (1990) * ''Swimming in the Volcano'' (1993) * ''The Woman Who Lost Her Soul'' (2013)

References

External links

*
Notable Former Volunteers / Arts and Literature
. Peace Corps official site. Accessed 5 January 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shacochis, Bob 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American male journalists Florida State University faculty Peace Corps volunteers National Book Award winners University of Missouri alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni 1951 births Living people American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Florida Novelists from Iowa 20th-century American non-fiction writers