Sarah Vowell
Vowell in August 2007
Born	Sarah Jane Vowell (1969-12-27)December 27, 1969 (age 55) Muskogee, Oklahoma, U.S.
Education	Montana State University (BA) School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MA)[1]
Occupations	Historian Writer journalist social commentator actress
Years active	1987–present

Sarah Jane Vowell (born December 27, 1969)^[2] is an American historian,^[3] writer, journalist, radio personality,social commentator, and actress. She has written seven nonfiction books onAmerican history and culture. Vowell was a contributing editor for the radio programThis American Life onPublic Radio International from 1996 to 2008, where she produced commentaries and documentaries. She was the voice ofViolet Parr in the 2004 animated filmThe Incredibles and its2018 sequel.

Sarah Vowell was born inMuskogee, Oklahoma on December 27, 1969. She has Swedish, Scottish and distant Cherokee ancestry.^[4]Her family moved toBozeman, Montana when she was eleven.^[5] She has afraternal twin sister, Amy. Vowell graduated fromBozeman High School.^[6] She earned aBA fromMontana State University in 1993 in Modern Languages and Literature,^[7] and anMA in Art History from theSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999.^[8]

Vowell's articles have been published inThe Village Voice,Esquire,Spin Magazine,The New York Times,The Los Angeles Times,SF Weekly, andThe Washington Post.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]} She has been a regular contributor to the online magazineSalon.com,^[16] and was one of the original contributors toMcSweeney's, participating in many of thequarterly's readings and shows.

Vowell's first book,Radio On: A Listener's Diary (1997), which featured her year-long diary of listening to the radio in 1995, caught the attention ofThis American Life hostIra Glass, and it led to Vowell becoming a frequent contributor to the show.^{[citation needed]} Thereafter, segments on the show became the subjects for many of her subsequent published essays.^{[citation needed]} Vowell's first essay collection wasTake the Cannoli (2000), which was followed byThe Partly Cloudy Patriot (2002).

In 2005, Vowell served as a guest columnist forThe New York Times during several weeks in July, briefly filling in forMaureen Dowd.^[17] She again served as a guest columnist in February 2006.^[18] Her bookAssassination Vacation (2005) describes a road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidentsAbraham Lincoln,James A. Garfield andWilliam McKinley.^[19] Vowell's book,The Wordy Shipmates (2008), analyzes the settlement of theNew England Puritans in America and their contributions to American history.^[20] Also in 2008, Vowell's essay aboutMontana appeared in the bookState by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.

Vowell wroteUnfamiliar Fishes (2011), which discusses theOverthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and theNewlands Resolution.^[21][22] In April 2011, the book became aNew York Times Bestseller.^[23] In her Los Angeles Times review, Susan Salter Reynolds wrote that Vowell's "cleverness is gorgeously American: She collects facts and stores them like a nervous chipmunk, digesting them only for the sake of argument."^[21]Allegra Goodman, writing inThe Washington Post, describes the work as "a big gulp of a book, printed as an extended essay... Lacking section or chapter breaks, Vowell's quirky history lurches from one anecdote to the next. These are often entertaining, but in the aggregate they begin to sound the same...", adding that "Vowell tells a good tale" with "shrewd observations", but that "the narrative wears thin where casual turns cute and cute threatens to turn glib."^[22]

Her most recent book isLafayette in the Somewhat United States (2015), an account of theMarquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who becameGeorge Washington's trusted officer and friend, and afterward an American celebrity.^[24][25] In a review forThe New York Times,Charles P. Pierce wrote, "Vowell wanders through the history of theAmerican Revolution and its immediate aftermath, using Lafayette's involvement in the war as a map, and bringing us all along in her perambulations… and doing it with a wink."^[24]NPR reviewer Colin Dwyer wrote, "It's awfully refreshing to see Vowell bring our founders down from their lofty pedestals. In her telling, they're just men again, not the gods we've long since made of them."^[25]

Vowell has appeared on television shows includingNightline,The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,^[26]The Colbert Report,Jimmy Kimmel Live!,Late Show with David Letterman, andLate Night with Conan O'Brien.^{[27][better source needed]}

In April 2006, Vowell served as the keynote speaker at the 27th Annual Kentucky Women Writers Conference.^[28] In August and September 2006, she toured the United States as part of theRevenge of the Book Eaters national tour, which benefited the children's literacy centers826NYC,826CHI,826 Valencia,826LA, 826 Michigan, and826 Seattle.^{[citation needed]}

Vowell provided commentary inRobert Wuhl's 2005Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl HBO specials.^[29]

Vowell provided the voice ofViolet Parr, a shy teenager, in the 2004Pixar animated filmThe Incredibles, and returned to her role for the film's sequel,Incredibles 2, in 2018.^[30][31] She voiced the character in related video games, and forDisney on Ice presentations.^[32][33] DirectorBrad Bird heard Vowell onThis American Life, "Guns",^[34] (in which she and her father fire a homemade cannon) and determined that Vowell's voice fit the character.^[35] Pixar made a test animation for Violet using audio from that sequence, which was included on the DVD ofThe Incredibles.^[36] Vowell wrote and was featured in a documentary included on the same DVD, entitled "Vowellett – An Essay by Sarah Vowell", in which she reflects on the difference between being an author of history books on assassinated presidents and voicing the superhero Violet, and on what the role meant to her nephew.

Vowell featured prominently in the 2002 documentary about the alternative rock bandThey Might Be Giants, entitledGigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, and she appeared with band membersJohn Linnell andJohn Flansburgh in the DVD commentary for the movie.^[37] She provided commentary for the April 2006 episode "Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley," one of ten in theHistory Channel miniseries10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.^[38]

In September 2006, Vowell appeared as a minor character in the ABC dramaSix Degrees.^[39] She appeared in an episode of HBO'sBored to Death, as an interviewer in a bar, and in 2010, appeared briefly in the filmPlease Give, as a shopper.^[40][41] Vowell appeared onThe Daily Show as a Senior Historical Context Correspondent.^[42]

Vowell writes that she has a small amount ofCherokee Nation ancestry (about 1/8 on her mother's side and 1/16 on her father's side). She is not a citizen of the Cherokee Nation or any other tribe. She retraced the path of the forced removal of the Cherokee from thesoutheastern United States to Oklahoma, known as theTrail of Tears, with her twin sister Amy. In 1998,This American Life chronicled her story, devoting the entire hour to her work.^[43]Vowell spent many vacations with her sister and nephew visiting historical sites. As a child she attended church three times a week and seldom travelled. Vowell does not drive and is an avid public transit user.^[44]

She has described herself as a "culturally Christian atheist".^[45]

Vowell lives inManhattan, New York. She is on the advisory board of826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for students aged 6–18 inBrooklyn.^[46]

• 1997 –Radio On: A Listener's Diary,ISBN 0-312-18301-1.
• 2000 –Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World,ISBN 0-7432-0540-5.
• 2002 –The Partly Cloudy Patriot,ISBN 0-7432-4380-3.
• 2005 –Assassination Vacation,ISBN 0-7432-6003-1.
• 2008 –The Wordy Shipmates,ISBN 1-59448-999-8.
• 2011 –Unfamiliar Fishes,ISBN 1-59448-787-1.
• 2015 –Lafayette in the Somewhat United States,ISBN 1-59463-174-3.

External audio
Consonant Vowells: Sarah Vowell onThis American Life andHearing Voices
How A French Teenager Helped Save Us From 'The Fatal Tendency Of Disunion', John O'Brien, KUOW, November 12, 2015

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• Sarah Vowell author page
• Sarah Vowell page atThis American Life
• Steven Barclay Agency, Sarah Vowell page
• Sarah Vowell atIMDb
• Gilmer, Marcus (October 21, 2008)."Interview: Sarah Vowell".Chicagoist. Archived fromthe original on June 8, 2010.
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