Wells Tower (born April 14, 1973) is an American writer of short stories, non-fiction, feature films and television. In 2009 he published his first short story collection, ''Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned'' (

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...

) to much critical acclaim. His short fiction has also been published in ''

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 ...

'', ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'', ''

McSweeney's McSweeney's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. Initially publishing the literary journal'' Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', the company has moved to n ...

'', ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...

'', ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'', ''

A Public Space ''A Public Space'' is a nonprofit triquarterly English-language literary magazine based in Brooklyn, New York. First published in April 2006, ''A Public Space'' publishes fiction, poetry, essays and art. The magazine's Focus portfolios have exam ...

'', ''Fence'' and other periodicals. In 2022, he wrote the screenplay for the feature film "Pain Hustlers", starring

Emily Blunt Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is a British actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards. ...

and directed by

David Yates David Yates (born 8 October 1963) is an English film director, producer and screenwriter, who has directed feature films, short films, and television productions. He is best known for directing the final four films in the Harry Potter (film se ...

, which was bought by

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

for $50 million.

Early life, education, and early career

Tower was born in

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, but grew up in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. He played

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

in the

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

band Hellbender for six years beginning his senior year of high school. He received a B.A. in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

and

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

's School of the Arts. After graduating from Wesleyan, he traveled around the United States doing odd jobs. He began his professional career when he convinced an editor at ''

The Washington Post Magazine ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' to publish an article about a carnival worker. Tower is the recipient of two

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

s, the 2002 Plimpton (Discovery) Prize from ''

'', and a Henfield Foundation Award.

Writing career

Farrar, Straus and Giroux published Tower's first short story collection, ''Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned'' in 2009. The book was reviewed in the ''

New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' by

Edmund White Edmund Valentine White III (born 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University. France made him (and later ) de l'Ordr ...

and in 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 d ...

'' by

Michiko Kakutani Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life ...

. Kakutani picked it as one of her ten best books of 2009. It was also a finalist for

The Story Prize The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first p ...

. The short story from which the collection's title is taken is about a community of Vikings growing older, told in a modern-day vernacular, in a similar vein as the film

Severed Ways ''Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America'' is a 2007 independent adventure drama film that tells a story of Norse explorers battling nature, natives and Christianity in North America in the year 1007 AD. It was written, directed, edited and ...

. In June 2010, Tower was named as one of ''

'' magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers. On June 10, 2010, he was presented with the Tenth Annual

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

Young Lions Fiction Award The Young Lions Fiction Award is an annual US literary prize of $10,000, awarded to a writer who is 35 years old or younger for a novel or collection of short stories. The award was established in 2001 by Ethan Hawke, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Rick ...

, a $10,000 prize for an American writer under 40. His work was selected for ''

The Best American Short Stories 2010 ''The Best American Short Stories 2010'', a volume in ''The Best American Short Stories series'', was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Richard Russo.Pitlor, Heidi and Russo, Richard(editors), ''The Best American Short Stories 2010'' Hough ...

''. Since 2010, his nonfiction reporting has been featured in ''

The Best American Sports Writing ''The Best American Sports Writing'' was a yearly anthology of magazine articles on the subject of sports published in the United States. It started in 1991 as part of ''The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin and ceased publicati ...

'' three times, for "Own Goal" (2011), originally published in ''

'' and a finalist for a

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

for Profile Writing; "Welcome to the Far East Conference" (2012), originally published in '' GQ''; and "Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant?" (2015), also originally published in '' GQ''. In 2014, Tower was a finalist for two National Magazine Awards in Essays and Criticism for "The Old Man at Burning Man" and in Fiction for "The Dance Contest." In a segment from the July 19, 2018 episode of the '' Still Processing'' podcast, host

Jenna Wortham Jenna Wortham is an American journalist. They work as a culture writer for ''The New York Times Magazine'' and co-hosts ''The New York Times'' podcast '' Still Processing'' with Wesley Morris. In 2020, with Kimberly Drew, Wortham published '' Bl ...

discussed an incident involving Tower at a public reading held as part of the 2018

Tin House ''Tin House'' is an American book publisher based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Portland publisher Win McCormack originally conceived the idea for a literary magazine called ''Tin House'' in the summer of 1998. He enlisted Holly MacArt ...

Summer Writer's Workshop in Portland, Oregon. The piece Tower selected to read from ("Own Goal," published in ''

'' in 2010) featured direct quotes from homeless individuals, some of which were allegedly misogynistic. According to Wortham, several members of the audience walked out in protest. Tower issued a public apology at an assembly the following day. On May 22, 2022,

paid $50 million for global rights to the conspiracy film "Pain Hustlers", written by Tower, directed by

, and starring

. Tower's original screenplay was inspired by Evan Hughes’ nonfiction book "The Hard Sell", which was published January 2022. Tower’s unproduced screenwriting credits include "The True American" for director

Kathryn Bigelow Kathryn Ann Bigelow (; born November 27, 1951) is an American filmmaker. Covering a wide range of genres, her films include ''Near Dark'' (1987), ''Point Break'' (1991), '' Strange Days'' (1995), '' K-19: The Widowmaker'' (2002), ''The Hurt Locke ...

and

Megan Ellison Margaret Elizabeth Ellison (born January 31, 1986) is an American film producer and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Annapurna Pictures, established in 2011. She produced the films ''Zero Dark Thirty'' (2012), '' Her'' (2013), '' American Hu ...

Annapurna Pictures Annapurna Pictures is an independent American media company founded by Megan Ellison in 2011, that specializes in film production, live theatre production, television through its Annapurna Television division, and video game publishing through i ...

, and "Framed" for

George Clooney George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...

's Smokehouse Productions and

. His unproduced television writing credits include the dramatic series "Paper" for

Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. ...

Plan B Entertainment Plan B Entertainment, Inc., more commonly known as Plan B, is an American production company founded in November in 2001 by Brad Grey, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Kristin Hahn. In 2005, after Pitt and Aniston divorced, Grey became the CEO of ...

and

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

, and the series "Mayor" for

Alec Baldwin Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. In his early career, Baldwin played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films such as Tim Burton's ''Beetlejuice'' (1988), Mike Nichol ...

and

Personal life

As of 2009, Tower divides his time between

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

, and

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. His Facebook page has been inactive since August 2013.

Bibliography

Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant?
, '' GQ'', October 2, 2017
No Amount of Traffic or Instagrammers or Drunks Can Take the Magic Out of (Semi-) Wilderness
, ''

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 ...

'', June 7, 2016
The Old Man at Burning Man
, '' GQ'', August 31, 2015
The Great Paper Caper
, '' GQ'', November 1, 2014
From Wells Tower’s ‘The Dance Contest'
, ''

'', Issue 44
The Elvis Impersonator, the Karate Instructor, a Fridge Full of Severed Heads, and the Plot 2 Kill the President
, '' GQ'', September 29, 2013
In Gold We Trust
, '' GQ'', January 6, 2012
Welcome to the Far East Conference
, '' GQ'', April 17, 2011
Moto
, ''

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

'', March 2, 2011
Own Goal
, ''

'', June 2010 *
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories
', Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009
The Thing with Feathers
, ''

'', March 1, 2006 *"The Brown Coast," ''

'', Spring 2002 (No. 161) *"Retreat," ''

'', Issue 30 (March 2009) *"Executors of Important Energies", ''

'', Issue 14 (September 2004)
Down Through The Valley
, ''

'', September 2001 (No. 159)
Leopard
, ''

,'' November 10, 2008
Door In Your Eye
, ''

'', Winter 2008 (Issue 05)
Wild America
, ''

'', December 2, 2000
On the Show
, ''

,'' May 2007 *"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned", ''Fence,'' Fall/Winter 2002 (Vol. 4, No. 2)

References

External links

David Sedaris Reads Wells Tower
for ''The New Yorker'' fiction podcast
An Interview with Wells Tower
The Brooklyn Review
"Books to give you hope: ''Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned''
, The Guardian
Wells Tower
at Macmillan Books
Review of Everything Ravaged Everything Burned
by Michiko Kakutani, from ''The New York Times''
The World We Live In
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned review by

Deborah Eisenberg Deborah Eisenberg (born November 20, 1945) is an American short story writer, actress and teacher. She is a professor of writing at Columbia University. Early life Eisenberg was born in Winnetka, Illinois. Her family is Jewish. She grew up in su ...

from ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

''
An Interview with Wells Tower
on KRUI's The Lit Show
The Still Lives of Wells Tower
by Paul Maliszewski, from ''The Brooklyn Rail'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Tower, Wells American short story writers Wesleyan University alumni Columbia University School of the Arts alumni 1973 births Living people Canadian emigrants to the United States Writers from North Carolina