Ron Powers
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Ron Powers (born 1941) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer. His works include White Town Drowsing: Journeys to Hannibal, Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain, and Mark Twain: A Life. With James Bradley, he co-wrote the 2000 #1 New York Times Bestseller Flags of Our Fathers.
Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1973 for his critical writing as TV-radio-columnist for Chicago Sun-Times about television during 1972.[1] [2] He was the first television critic to win the Pulitzer Prize.[3]
In 1985, Powers won an Emmy Award for his work on CBS News Sunday Morning.[3]
[edit] Personal/influence
Powers was born in 1941 in Hannibal, Missouri — Mark Twain's hometown. [4] Hannibal was influential in much of Powers' writing [4] — as the subject of his book White Town Drowsing, as the location of the two true-life murders that are the subject of Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore, and as the home of Mark Twain. Powers has said that his facination with Twain — the subject of two of his books — began in childhood:
- "When I was a little boy in Hannibal, he was a mystic figure to me. His pictures and books and images were all over (my friend) Dulany Winkler's house, and I spent a lot of time there. I just wanted to reach out and touch him. Eventually I was able to."[5]
In addition to writing, Powers has taught for the Bredlow-writers conference, the Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, and at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.
Powers is married and has two sons.
[edit] Bibliography
- (1979) Newscasters: The News Business As Show Business. St. Martins Press. ISBN 0312572085.
- (1986) White Town Drowsing: Journeys to Hannibal. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 087113103X.
- (1990) The Beast, the Eunuch, and the Glass-Eyed Child: Television in the 80s. Harcourt. ISBN 031226240X.
- (1991) Far From Home: Life and Loss in Two American Towns. Random House. ISBN 0394570340.
- (1994) The Cruel Radiance Notes of a Prosewriter in a Visual Age. Middlebury College Press.
- (1999) Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81086-7.
- (2001) Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore: Childhood and Murder in the Heart of America. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-26240-X.
- (2005) Mark Twain: A Life. Free Press. ISBN 0743248996.
- Co-authored
- James Bradley and Ron Powers (2000). Flag of Our Fathers. Bantam. ISBN 0553111337.
- Robert Morgan and Ron Powers (2001). The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle: Memoir of a WWII Bomber Pilot. Dutton Adult. ISBN 0525946101.
[edit] References
- ^ The Pulitzer Prizes for 1973. The Pulitzer Prize Board. Retrieved on December 20, 2006.
- ^ Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. NNDB. Retrieved on December 19, 2006.
- ^ a b Ron Powers. Interview. In Depth with Ron Powers. In Depth. January 1, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-19.
- ^ a b Ron Powers. Mark Twain: A Look at the Life and Works of Samuel Clemens. The Hannibal Courier, Hannibal.net. Retrieved on December 23, 2006.
- ^ Mary Lou Montgomery (June 2, 1999). Powers writes about Twain's childhood. The Hannibal Courier.
