Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) 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

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

writer. His best-known works are the novel '' The Sportswriter'' and its sequels, '' Independence Day'', ''

The Lay of the Land ''The Lay of the Land'' is a 2006 novel by American author Richard Ford. The novel is the third in what is now a four-part series, preceded by the novels '' The Sportswriter'' (1986) and '' Independence Day'' (1995); and followed by ''Let Me Be ...

'' and ''Let Me Be Frank With You'', and the short story collection '' Rock Springs'', which contains several widely anthologized stories. Ford received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996 for ''Independence Day''. Ford's novel ''Wildlife'' was adapted into a 2018 film of the same name. He won the 2018

Park Kyong-ni Prize Park Kyong-ni Prize (Korean: 박경리 문학상) is an international literary award based in South Korea. It was established in 2011 in honor of Park Kyung-ni, known for her series '' Toji''. The award was founded and sponsored by the Toji Founda ...

Early life

Ford was born in

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

, the only son of Parker Carrol and Edna Ford. Parker was a traveling salesman for

Faultless Starch Faultless Brands is a manufacturing business, producing laundry, household cleaning products, air care, and lawn and garden products. The company headquarters are located in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. History In 1886, Major Thomas G. ...

, a Kansas City company. Of his mother, Ford said, "Her ambition was to be, first, in love with my father and, second, to be a full-time mother." When Ford was eight years old, his father had a severe

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

, and thereafter Ford spent as much time with his grandfather, a former

prizefighter Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...

and hotel owner in

Little Rock, Arkansas (The Little Rock, The "Little Rock") , government_type = council-manager government, Council-manager , leader_title = List of mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_ ...

, as he did with his parents in Mississippi.Guagliardo 2001, p.xiii. Ford's father died of a second heart attack in 1960. In Jackson, Ford lived across the street from the home of author

Eudora Welty Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...

. Ford's grandfather had worked for a railroad. At the age of 19, before deciding to attend college, Ford began work on the

Missouri Pacific The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad ...

train line as a locomotive engineer's assistant, learning the work while doing the job. Ford received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree from

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. Having enrolled to study hotel management, he switched to English. After graduating, he taught junior high school in Flint, Michigan, and enlisted in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

but was discharged after contracting

hepatitis Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes ( jaundice), poor appetite, vomiting, tiredness, abdominal ...

. At university he met Kristina Hensley, his future wife; they married in 1968. Despite mild dyslexia, Ford developed a serious interest in

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

. He has stated in interviews that his dyslexia may have helped him as a reader, as it forced him to read books slowly and thoughtfully. Ford briefly attended law school but quit and participated with the creative writing program at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

, to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree, which he received in 1970. Ford chose this course simply because "they admitted me. I remember getting the application for

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

, and thinking they'd never have let me in. I'm sure I was right about that, too. But, typical of me, I didn't know who was teaching at Irvine. I didn't know it was important to know such things. I wasn't the most curious of young men, even though I give myself credit for not letting that deter me." Actually,

Oakley Hall Oakley Maxwell Hall (July 1, 1920 – May 12, 2008) was an American novelist. He was born in San Diego, California, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and served in the Marines during World War II. Some of his mysteries were ...

and

E. L. Doctorow Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction. He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama. They included ...

were teaching there, and Ford has acknowledged that they influenced him.This citation is now only available in its via the

Web Archive The Web ARChive (WARC) archive format specifies a method for combining multiple digital resources into an aggregate archive file together with related information. The WARC format is a revision of the Internet Archive's ARC_IA File Format that ...

. It was originally cited here: In 1971, he was selected for a three-year appointment in the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Society of Fellows.

Early career

Ford published his first novel, ''A Piece of My Heart'', the story of two unlikely drifters whose paths cross on an island in the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

, during 1976, and followed it with ''The Ultimate Good Luck'' during 1981. During the interim he briefly taught at

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...

and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. Despite good notices the books sold little, and Ford retired from fiction writing to become a writer for the New York magazine ''Inside Sports''. "I realized," Ford said, "there was probably a wide gulf between what I could do and what would succeed with readers. I felt that I'd had a chance to write two novels, and neither of them had really created much stir, so maybe I should find real employment, and earn my keep." During 1982, the magazine was terminated, and when ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'' did not hire Ford, he resumed writing fiction, composing ''The Sportswriter'', a novel about a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an emotional crisis after the death of his son. The novel became Ford's first well-known publication, named one of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine's five best books of 1986 and a finalist for the

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...

. Ford followed the success immediately with ''Rock Springs'' (1987), a story collection mostly set in

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

, includes some of his most popular stories. Reviewers and literary critics associated the stories in ''Rock Springs'' with the aesthetic style known as "

dirty realism Dirty realism is a term coined by Bill Buford of ''Granta'' magazine to define a North American literary movement. Writers in this sub-category of realism are said to depict the seamier or more mundane aspects of ordinary life in spare, unadorned ...

". This term referred to a group of authors during the 1970s and 1980s that included

Raymond Carver Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s. Early life Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mil ...

and

Tobias Wolff Tobias is the transliteration of the Greek which is a translation of the Hebrew biblical name he, טוֹבִיה, Toviyah, JahGod is good, label=none. With the biblical Book of Tobias being present in the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha of the Bible, T ...

—- two writers with whom Ford was well acquainted—- along with

Ann Beattie Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story f ...

Frederick Barthelme Fredrick Barthelme (born October 10, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer, well-known as one of the seminal writers of minimalist fiction. Alongside his personal publishing history, his position as Director of The Center For Write ...

, Larry Brown, and

Jayne Anne Phillips Jayne Anne Phillips (born July 19, 1952) is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. Education Phillips graduated from West Virginia University, earning a B.A. in 1974, and later g ...

, among others. Those applying this label refer to Carver's lower-middle-class subjects or the protagonists Ford portrays in ''Rock Springs''. However, many of the characters of the novels about Frank Bascombe (''The Sportswriter'', ''Independence Day'', ''The Lay of the Land'', and ''Let Me Be Frank With You''), notably the protagonist himself, enjoy degrees of material affluence and

cultural capital In the field of sociology, cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society. Cultural capital functions as a social relatio ...

not normally associated with dirty realism.

Mid-career and acclaim

His 1990 novel ''

Wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

'', a story of a

golf professional turned firefighter, met with mixed reviews and middling sales, but by the end of the 1990s Ford was well known. He was increasingly sought after as an editor and contributor to various projects. Ford edited the 1990 ''

Best American Short Stories The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of '' The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in co ...

'', the 1992 ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

Book of the American Short Story'', the Fall 1996 "fiction issue" of

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bos ...

, and the 1998 ''Granta Book of the American Long Story''. In the latter volume's "Introduction," Ford stipulated that he preferred the designation "long story" instead of term "novella." For the publishing project

Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rang ...

, Ford edited a two-volume edition of the selected works of the Mississippi writer

, which was published during 1998. During 1995, Ford published the novel '' Independence Day'', a sequel to ''The Sportswriter'', featuring the continued story of its protagonist, Frank Bascombe. Reviews were positive, and the novel became the first to win both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. During the same year, Ford was chosen as winner of the

Rea Award for the Short Story The Rea Award for the Short Story is an annual award given to a living American or Canadian author chosen for unusually significant contributions to short story fiction. The Award The Rea Award is named after Michael M. Rea, who was engaged in ...

, for outstanding achievement for that genre. He ended the 1990s with a well-received collection of short stories, ''Women With Men'', published during 1997. The ''Paris Review'' termed him a "master" of the short story genre.

Later life and writings

Ford lived for many years in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

in the

French Quarter The French Quarter, also known as the , is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans (french: La Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Sq ...

, on lower

Bourbon Street Bourbon Street (french: Rue Bourbon, es, Calle de Borbón) is a historic street in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans. Extending thirteen blocks from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue, Bourbon Street is famous for its many bars an ...

, and then in the Garden District of the same city, where his wife, Kristina, was the executive director of the city planning commission. He now lives in Maine in East Boothbay. During the intervening years, Ford lived in other locations, usually in the United States, as he pursued a

peripatetic Peripatetic may refer to: *Peripatetic school, a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece *Peripatetic axiom * Peripatetic minority, a mobile population moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade. *Peripatetic Jats There are several ...

teaching career. He obtained a teaching appointment at Bowdoin College during 2005 but kept the job for only one semester. During 2008 Ford was an adjunct professor of the

Oscar Wilde Centre The Oscar Wilde Centre is an academic research and teaching unit in Trinity College Dublin. It was founded in 1998, and is located at 21 Westland Row, the house in which Oscar Wilde was born. This building, which is on the perimeter of Trinity, wa ...

with the School of English at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, teaching in the Masters programme in creative writing. Starting December 29, 2010, Ford assumed the job of senior fiction professor at the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment. ...

during the autumn of 2011, replacing

Barry Hannah Barry Hannah (April 23, 1942 – March 1, 2010) was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.Kellogg, Carolyn (March 2, 2010)"Author Barry Hannah, 67, has died" ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved May 18, 2013. Hannah was born in ...

, who died during March 2010. During the autumn of 2012, he became the Emmanuel Roman and Barrie Sardoff Roman Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Writing at the Columbia University School of the Arts. As the new century commenced, he published another story collection, ''A Multitude of Sins'' (2002), followed by the novels ''The Lay Of The Land,''—-the third in his Bascombe series—- in 2006, and ''

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

'', published during May 2012. According to Ford, ''The Lay Of The Land'' completed his series of Bascombe novels, but ''Canada'' was a stand-alone novel. However, during April 2013, Ford read from a new Frank Bascombe story without revealing to the audience whether it was part of a longer work. By 2014, it was confirmed that the story was to appear in the book ''Let Me Be Frank With You'', published during November of that year. The latter is a work consisting of four interconnected novellas (or "long stories": ''I'm Here'', ''Everything Could Be Worse'', ''The New Normal'' and ''Deaths of Others''), all narrated by Frank Bascombe.Richard Ford
Lyceum Agency, 2014 ''Let Me Be Frank With You'' was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. It did not win the prize, but the selection committee praised the book for its "unflinching series of narratives, set in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, insightfully portraying a society in decline.""The 2015 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Fiction"
The Pulitzer Prizes. Also, as he did in the preceding decade, Ford continued to assist with various editing projects. During 2007, he edited the ''New

Book of the American Short Story'', and in 2011 he edited ''Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work''. During May 2017, Ford published a memoir, ''Between Them: Remembering My Parents''. In 2018, ''Wildlife'' was adapted into a film of the same name by director

Paul Dano Paul Franklin Dano (; born June 19, 1984) is an American actor. He began his career on Broadway before making his film debut in ''The Newcomers'' (2000). He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his role in '' L.I.E.' ...

and screenwriter

Zoe Kazan Zoe Swicord Kazan (; born September 9, 1983) is an American actress, playwright, and screenwriter. She made her acting debut in the film ''Swordswallowers and Thin Men'' (2003) and later appeared in films such as '' The Savages'' (2007), ''Revol ...

. It was released to widespread critical acclaim. In 2020, Ford’s short story collection, ''Sorry For Your Trouble'', was published. His novel, ''Be Mine'', is scheduled for publication in 2023. It is the fifth, and presumably final, book in Ford’s so-called “Bascombe series.”

Critical opinion

Ford's writing demonstrates "a meticulous concern for the nuances of language ... ndthe rhythms of phrases and sentences". Ford has described his sense of language as "a source of pleasure in itself—- all of its corporeal qualities, its syncopations, moods, sounds, the way things look on the page". Besides this "devotion to language" is what he terms "the fabric of affection that holds people close enough together to survive." Comparisons have been drawn between Ford's work and the writings of John Updike,

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...

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 ...

and

Walker Percy Walker Percy, OSB (May 28, 1916 – May 10, 1990) was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, '' The Moviegoer'', won the Nat ...

. Ford resists such comparisons, commenting, "You can't write ... on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself." Ford's works of fiction "dramatize the breakdown of such cultural institutions as marriage, family, and community," and his "marginalized protagonists often typify the rootlessness and nameless longing ... pervasive in a highly mobile, present-oriented society in which individuals, having lost a sense of the past, relentlessly pursue their own elusive identities in the here and now." Ford "looks to art, rather than religion, to provide consolation and redemption in a chaotic time."

Controversies

Ford once sent

Alice Hoffman Alice Hoffman (born March 16, 1952) is an American novelist and young-adult and children's writer, best known for her 1995 novel ''Practical Magic'', which was adapted for a 1998 film of the same name. Many of her works fall into the genre of ...

a copy of one of her books with bullet holes in it after she angered him by unfavorably reviewing ''The Sportswriter''. In 2004, Ford spat on

Colson Whitehead Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead (born November 6, 1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work '' The Intuitionist''; '' The Underground Railroad'' (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Awar ...

when encountering him at a party two years after Whitehead published a negative review of ''A Multitude of Sins'', resulting in speculation that the incident may have been racially motivated rather than a matter of critical differences. Thirteen years later after spitting in his colleague's face, Ford remained unrepentant, writing in ''Esquire'' in 2017, "as of today, I don’t feel any different about Mr. Whitehead, or his review, or my response."

Awards and honors

* 1995

, for outstanding achievement in that genre * 1996

PEN/Faulkner Award The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...

, for '' Independence Day'' * 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, for ''Independence Day'' * 2001

PEN/Malamud Award The PEN/Malamud Award and Memorial Reading honors "excellence in the art of the short story", and is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The selection committee is composed of PEN/Faulkner directors and representatives of Bernard Ma ...

, for excellence in short fiction * 2005 St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates * 2008 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement * 2013

Prix Femina étranger The Prix Femina étranger is a French literary award established in 1985. It is awarded annually to a foreign-language literary work translated into French. List of laureates See also * Prix Femina * Prix Femina essai The prix Femina essai ...

, for ''

'' * 2013

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction __NOTOC__ The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were established in 2012 to recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year. They are named in honor of ni ...

, for ''Canada'' * 2015 Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature part of th
F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival
* 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, finalist, for ''Let Me Be Frank with You'' * 2016

Princess of Asturias Award The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios Príncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...

in Literature * 2018

* 2018

Siegfried Lenz Prize The Siegfried Lenz Prize is intended to honor international writers who have achieved recognition for their narrative work and whose creative work is close to the spirit of Siegfried Lenz. The award is endowed with €50,000. The jury consists of ...

* 2019

Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (formerly the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction and Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement Award for the Writing of Fiction) is an annual book award presented by the Librarian ...

Bibliography

Novels

* ''A Piece of My Heart'' (1976) * ''The Ultimate Good Luck'' (1981) * '' The Sportswriter'' (1986) * ''

'' (1990) * '' Independence Day'' (1995) * ''

'' (2006) * ''

'' (2012) * ''Be Mine'' (2023)

Story collections

* '' Rock Springs'' (1987) * ''Women with Men: Three Stories'' (1997) * ''A Multitude of Sins'' (2002) * ''Vintage Ford'' (2004) * '' Let Me Be Frank With You'' (2014) — collects 4 novellas: ''I'm Here''; ''Everything Could Be Worse''; ''The New Normal''; and ''Deaths of Others'' * ''Sorry for Your Trouble'' (2020)

Memoir

* ''Between Them: Remembering My Parents'' (2017)

Screenplays

* ''

Bright Angel ''Bright Angel'' is a 1990 American drama film directed by Michael Fields, and starring Dermot Mulroney, Lili Taylor, and Sam Shepard. The film follows two teenagers, George and the transient Lucy, who travel from their home in Montana to Wyoming ...

'' (1990)

As contributor or editor

* ''The

Book of the American Short Story'' (1992) * ''The Granta Book of the American Long Story'' (1999) * ''The Essential Tales of

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

'' (1999) * Foreword to

Alec Soth Alec Soth (born 1969) is an American photographer, based in Minneapolis. Soth makes "large-scale American projects" featuring the midwestern United States. ''New York Times'' art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a "photographic care ...

, ''NIAGARA'' (Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2006) * ''The New Granta Book of the American Short Story'' (2007) * ''Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work'' (2012) * Foreword to Maude Schuyler Clay, ''Mississippi History'' (Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2015)

References

Works cited

* Elinor Walker, ''Richard Ford'' (New York, NY; Twayne Publishers, 2000) * Huey Guagliardo, ''Perspectives on Richard Ford: Redeemed by Affection'' (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2000) * Huey Guagliardo, ed., ''Conversations with Richard Ford'' (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2001) * Brian Duffy, ''Morality, Identity and Narrative in the Fiction of Richard Ford,'' (New York, NY; Amsterdam; Rodopi, 2008) * Joseph M. Armengol, ''Richard Ford and the Fiction of Masculinities'' (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010) * Ian McGuire, ''Richard Ford and the Ends of Realism'' (Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2015)

External links

;Work
"Nobody's Everyman"
''

Bookforum ''Bookforum'' is an American book review magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature that was based in New York City, New York. The magazine was founded in 1994 and announced in December of 2022 it would cease publishing after 2 ...

'' (Apr/May 2009)
''Leaving for Kenosha''
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' (2008)
''How Was it to be Dead?''
''The New Yorker'' (2006) ;Profiles
Bibliography

Profile
''

'' *
Overview of Ford's recent career, and critique of short stories
in ''

The Walrus ''The Walrus'' is an independent, non-profit Canadian media organization. It is multi-platform and produces an 8-issue-per-year magazine and online editorial content that includes current affairs, fiction, poetry, and podcasts, a national s ...

'' magazine ;Interviews
Interview on the 7th Avenue Project radio show
Richard Ford discusses his Frank Bascombe novels, his approach to fiction and his life. * * – Transcript of interview with

Ramona Koval Ramona Koval (born 1954, Melbourne) is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist. Her parents were Yiddish-speaking survivors of The Holocaust who arrived in Melbourne from Poland in 1950. Koval is known for her extended and in-depth in ...

, ''

The Book Show Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. History 1937: Predecessors an ...

'', ABC Radio National 31 December 2007
Interview for public radio in Maine (2006)

Maine Humanities Council The 'Maine Humanities Council (MHC) was founded in 1975 as a private nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is one of 56 humanities councils in the United States and its territories. The MHC is also home of the Harrie ...

Interview (1996)

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...

Interview on ''Writer's Voice'' (2006)
with radio host, Francesca Rheannon
IdentityTheory.comInterview (2006)
''

''
Interview (2006)
Nerve.com
Interview, book reading, and discussion video streams and MP3 download (2006)

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Interview February 2007
Pulitzer Prize-winning author talks with Robert Birnbaum about his latest Frank Bascombe novel, ''

''
Richard Ford: Shooting for the stars.
Video interview by

Louisiana Channel Louisiana Channel is a non-profit web-TV channel based at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. By the end of the first year, 28 November 2013, Louisiana Channel had published 130 videos featuring international artists, film m ...

2012.
Interview (2016)

The Ringer (website) The Ringer is a sports and pop culture website and podcast network, founded by sportswriter Bill Simmons in 2016 and owned by Spotify since 2020. History The Ringer was launched in March 2016 by Bill Simmons, who brought along several editors w ...

;Archival collections
Guide to The Ultimate Good Luck Galley Proofs.
Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Richard Ford Collection
owned by the University of Mississippi Department of Archives and Special Collections. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Richard 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Minimalist writers Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners Prix Femina Étranger winners PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners PEN/Malamud Award winners Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Bowdoin College faculty Novelists from Mississippi Novelists from Maine Michigan State University alumni University of Michigan fellows 1944 births Living people Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature American male short story writers Columbia University faculty People with dyslexia 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers People from Boothbay, Maine 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state) Writers with dyslexia