Jim Grimsley (born September 21, 1955) 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 asp ...

and playwright.

Biography

Born to a rural family in

Grifton, North Carolina Grifton is a town in Pitt and Lenoir counties, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,617 at the 2010 census. The Pitt County portion of the town is a part of the Greenville Metropolitan Area located in North Carolina's Inner Ban ...

, Grimsley said of his childhood that "for us in the South, the family is a field where craziness grows like weeds". After moving to Atlanta he would spend nearly twenty years as a secretary at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital before joining the creative-writing faculty at

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

. During those years, Grimsley wrote prolifically, with fourteen of his plays produced between 1983 and 1993.

Writing

His initial forays into novel writing were less successful than his dramatic work. The semiautobiographical '' Winter Birds'' was rejected as "too dark" by American publishers for ten years before appearing in a German edition; it only appeared in English sometime two years later. The novel then brought Grimsley much recognition: the

Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The $5,000 prize is given for the best published first novel or collection of short stories in the preceding year. It was established in 1979 in memory ...

from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Hemingway Award citation. It was followed by '' Dream Boy'' which received the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Book Award for Literature (

Stonewall Book Award The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S. They are sponsored by the Rainbow ...

), and '' My Drowning'', which won the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. Subsequently, he wrote the

high fantasy High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, or plot.Brian Stableford, ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'', (p. 198), Scarecrow Press, ...

novel '' Kirith Kirin'', which won the

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

, or 'Lammy', for best gay-themed science fiction or fantasy for the year 2000. This classically themed fantasy work was followed by two science fiction novels, ''The Ordinary'' and ''The Last Green Tree'' (2006 sequel to ''The Ordinary''). His novel ''Forgiveness'' () was published in 2007. Four of Grimsley's plays are collected in '' Mr. Universe and Other Plays''. He was awarded the

Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize The Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize is an American literary award, presented to two writers, one male and one female, from the LGBT community to honour their body of work. First presented by the Saints and Sinners Literary Festi ...

by the

Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Saints and Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival is an alternative literary festival specializing in LGBTQ+ literature. It is held in various locations around the French Quarter neighborhood in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana each March. Overview ...

in 2007."Saints and Sinners Literary Festival"
bestofneworleans.com, May 8, 2007. In 2015, Grimlsey published a memoir entitled '' How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood''. He has also worked on module for the Neverwinter Nights video game calle
Citadel
that won a golden dragon award for best module and a Hall of Fame Award.

References

Sources

* Grimsley, Jim, ''Out of Silence'', Brightleaf: A Southern Review of Books'', 3, March/April 1998 * Grimsley, Jim, ''Who We Are'', Publishers Weekly, September 30, 1996, pp 46–47 * Howorth, Lisa. ''Jim Grimsley: Tales of Southern Courage'', Publishers Weekly, November 5, 1999, pp. 39–40

External links

Jim Grimsley home page

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grimsley, Jim 1955 births 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American science fiction writers American gay writers Lambda Literary Award winners Stonewall Book Award winners Living people People from Jones County, North Carolina Novelists from North Carolina American LGBT novelists LGBT people from North Carolina People from Grifton, North Carolina Writers of American Southern literature 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Louisiana Emory University faculty