Verlyn Klinkenborg | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1952 (age 72–73) Meeker, Colorado, U.S. |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Pomona College (BA) Princeton University (PhD) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Creative Writing English literature |
| Institutions | Fordham University St. Olaf College Bennington College Sarah Lawrence College Bard College Harvard University Yale University |
Verlyn Klinkenborg (born 1952 inMeeker, Colorado) is an American non-fictionauthor, academic, and former newspaper editor, known for his writings onrural America.[1]
Klinkenborg was born inMeeker, Colorado, and raised on a farm inIowa.[2] He attended elementary school inClarion, Iowa, until the sixth grade before his family relocated toOsage, Iowa.[3] His family then moved toSacramento, California.
Klinkenborg attended theUniversity of California, Berkeley before earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature fromPomona College. He then earned a Ph.D fromPrinceton University, also in English literature.[4]
Klinkenborg taught literature and creative writing atFordham University while living inThe Bronx in the early to mid-1980s. He later taught atSt. Olaf College,Bennington College,Sarah Lawrence College,Bard College, andHarvard University. In 1991, he received theLila Wallace–Reader's Digest Writer's Award and aNational Endowment for the Arts fellowship.[5]
Klinkenborg's books includeMore Scenes from the Rural Life (Princeton Architectural Press),Making Hay andThe Last Fine Time.
His bookTimothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile concerns thetortoise which the English eighteenth centuryparson-naturalistGilbert White inherited from his aunt, as described in his 1789 bookThe Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.[6] In the first half of 2006, Klinkenborg posted a farm and garden blog about The Rural Life, consisting of entries from the daily journal kept byGilbert White in Selborne in 1784, and his own complementary daily entries.[7]
From 1997 to 2013, he was a member of the editorial board ofThe New York Times.[8]
Klinkenborg has published articles inThe New Yorker,The New York Review of Books,Harper's Magazine,Esquire,National Geographic andMother Jones magazines.
He has written a series of editorial opinions inThe New York Times; these are generally literary meditations on rural farm life. On December 26, 2013, he announced in that column that it was to be the last he would be writing in that space.[9]
From 2006 to 2007, he was a visiting writer-in-residence atPomona College, where he taught nonfiction writing. In 2007, he received aGuggenheim fellowship, which funded his bookThe Mermaids of Lapland, aboutWilliam Cobbett.[10] In 2012, he published “Several Short Sentences About Writing”.
He currently teaches creative writing atYale University and lives on a small farm inUpstate New York.[2]
 |
| Year | Review article | Work(s) reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Klinkenborg, Verlyn (February 22, 2018). "A horse is a horse, of course".The New York Review of Books.65 (3):46–47. | Raulff, Ulrich.Farewell to the horse : a cultural history. Translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp. Liveright. |
| 2019 | Klinkenborg, Verlyn (December 19, 2019). "What Were Dinosaurs For".The New York Review of Books.66 (20):34–38. | Five books on dinosaurs. |
| 2020 | Klinkenborg, Verlyn (December 17, 2020). "A Noah's Ark of Books".The New York Review of Books.67 (20). | Selected books in theReaktion Animal series. |
| 2021 | Klinkenborg, Verlyn (August 19, 2021). "Requiem for a Heavyweight".The New York Review of Books.68 (13). | Giggs, Rebecca.Fathoms: The World in the Whale. Simon and Schuster. |
| 2022 | Klinkenborg, Verlyn (July 23, 2022). "The Forest's-Eye View".The New York Review of Books.69 (12). | Reid, John W.;Lovejoy, Thomas E.Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet. Norton. Rawlence, Ben.The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth. St Martin's. |
| 2022 | Klinkenborg, Verlyn (December 19, 2022). "Endless Summer".The New York Review of Books.69 (15). | Wilson, Brent (director).Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (Documentary film). PBS American Masters. |
| 2023 | Klinkenborg, Verlyn (March 23, 2023). "Trees in Themselves".The New York Review of Books.70 (5). | Farmer, Jared.Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees. Basic Books. |
Bloggs, Joe;Bloggs, Fred (1974).Book of Bloggs.
