Michael Lowenthal, an American fiction writer, is the

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

of four novels, most recently ''The Paternity Test'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012). Currently an instructor of creative writing at Lesley University, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Wesleyan writers' conferences, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers. His short stories have appeared in literary journals and magazines including ''The Kenyon Review, Tin House,'' and ''Esquire.'' Lowenthal grew up near Washington, D.C. and graduated from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in 1990 as a class

valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution. The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...

. During his speech, he revealed that he was Dartmouth's first openly gay valedictorian. ''

The Dartmouth Review ''The Dartmouth Review'' is a conservative newspaper at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Founded in 1980 by a number of staffers from the College's daily newspaper, ''The Dartmouth,'' the paper is most famous for having ...

'' said that he singlehandedly ruined the graduation ceremony; however, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reported that this statement earned him a standing ovation. 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 2009. In 2014/15 he was a Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

's Institute for American Studies in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, Germany.

Charity Girl

Lowenthal told the

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

that he wrote ''Charity Girl'' because he happened to be reading

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

's book ''AIDS and Its Metaphors,'' and was intrigued by a reference to the quarantining during WWI of American women diagnosed with venereal diseases. Intrigued, he rapidly discovered that 15,000 young women had been summarily sent to detention centers for the duration, and wrote his first historical novel about such a girl.

Published works

* ''The Same Embrace'' ( Dutton, 1998) * '' Avoidance'' (

Graywolf Press Graywolf Press is an Independent publisher, independent, non-profit publishing, publisher located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Graywolf Press collaborates with organizations such as the Co ...

, 2002) * ''Charity Girl'' (

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

, 2007) * ''The Paternity Test'' (

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

, 2012) *''Sex with Strangers'' (University of Wisconsin Pres,, 2021)

References

External links

Author Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowenthal, Michael 1969 births 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Living people Novelists from Massachusetts Dartmouth College alumni Lesley University faculty Boston College faculty American gay writers American LGBT novelists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers