Madison Smartt Bell
Madison Smartt Bell
Portrait d'un Ecrivain
by
Madison Smartt Bell is the author of twelve novels, including The Washington Square Ensemble (1983), Waiting for the End of the World (1985), Straight Cut (1986), The Year of Silence (1987), Doctor Sleep (1991), Save Me, Joe Louis (1993), Ten Indians (1997) and Soldier's Joy, which received the Lillian Smith Award in 1989. Bell has also published two collections of short stories: Zero db (1987) and Barking Man (1990). In 2002, the novel Doctor Sleep was adapted as a film, Close Your Eyes, starring Goran Visnjic, Paddy Considine, and Shirley Henderson. Forty Words For Fear, an album of songs co-written by Bell and Wyn Cooper and inspired by the novel Anything Goes,was released by Gaff Music in 2003; other performers include Don Dixon, Jim Brock, Mitch Easter and Chris Frank.
Bell's eighth novel, All Soul's Rising, was
a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of
the 1996 Anisfield-Wolf award for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race.
All
Souls Rising, along with the second and third novels of his Haitian Revolutionary trilogy,
Master
of the Crossroads and The
Stone That The Builder Refused, is available in a uniform edition from
Vintage Contemporaries. Toussaint
Louverture A Biography was published by Pantheon in 2007.
Born and raised in Tennessee, he has lived in New York and in London and now lives in
Baltimore, Maryland. A graduate of Princeton University (A.B 1979) and Hollins College
(M.A. 1981), he has taught in various creative writing programs, including theIowa
Writers' Workshop and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. Since 1984 he has
taught in the Goucher College Creative Program,
where he is currently Professor of English, along with his wife, the poet Elizabeth
Spires. In 1999, Bell was appointed as Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College
just arrived!
Toussaint Louverture: A Biography
Small Blue Thing (short
story) 
Anything Goes
(novel)
Kat Rèv Nan Haiti
a fine press book from
Narrative
Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form
Paintings
from the North of Haiti
Kochon Kreyol:
a story in pictures
Waiting for the End of the World
BOOKS:
The Washington Square Ensemble (novel) Viking Press, 1983
Penguin Contemporary American
Fiction Series, 1984
Waiting For The End Of The World (novel) Ticknor & Fields, 1985
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1986
Straight Cut (novel) Ticknor & Fields, 1986
Penguin mass-market paperback, 1987
Zero db (short fiction) Ticknor & Fields, 1987
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1988
The Year Of Silence (novel) Ticknor & Fields, 1987
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1989
Soldier's Joy (novel) Ticknor & Fields, 1989
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1990
Barking Man (short fiction) Ticknor & Fields, 1990
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1991
Quality Paperback Club, 1991
Doctor Sleep (novel) Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1992
Save Me, Joe Louis (novel) Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1994
All Souls' Rising (novel) Pantheon, 1995
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1996
Ten Indians (novel) Pantheon, 1996
Penguin Contemporary American Fiction Series, 1997
Narrative Design: A Writer's Guide to Structure (textbook), W.W. Norton, 1997.
Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form (trade paperback edition) Norton, 2000
Master of the Crossroads (novel) Pantheon, 2000
Vintage Books, 2004
Anything Goes (novel), Pantheon Books, June 2002
The
Stone that the Builder Refused (novel),
Pantheon, 2004
Vintage Contemporaries, February 2006
Lavoisier
in the Year One
(nonfiction/biography/ history of science), W.W. Norton, 2005
Toussaint-Louverture: A Biography, Pantheon, 2006.
anthology publications :
Intro 9:
Close to Home: Triptych," (Hendel
& Reinke, 1978)
Best
American Short Stories 1984: "The Naked
Lady," (Houghton Mifflin, 1984)
The Best of
Intro: "Triptych," (Associated Writing Programs,
1985)
New Stories
from the South: "Triptych
2," (Algonquin Books, 1986)
The
Editors' Choice (v. 3): "Zero
db," (Bantam Books, 1986)
Homewords: "The Day I Shot My Dog," (University of
Tennessee Press, 1986)
The New
Writers of the South: "Monkey
Park," (University of Georgia Press, 1987)
Oral
Interpretation: "The Naked Lady," (Houghton Mifflin, 1987)
Best
American Short Stories 1987: "The Lie
Detector," (Houghton Mifflin, 1987)
Louder Than
Words: "Finding Natasha," (Random House, 1989)
Best
American Short Stories 1989: "Customs of
The Country" (Houghton Mifflin, 1989)
New Stories
from the South: "Customs of
the Country," (Algonquin Books, 1989)
Amerika
Porteller: "Customs of the Country," (1990?
an anthology of 30 U.S. short stories published in Norway -- Den Norske
Bokklubben)
Voices In
Fiction and Non Fiction:
"Witness," (with notes) (The
Long Ridge Writers Group, Danbury CT, 1990)
Words on
the Page, the World in Your Hands
"Getting Involved," (adapted from "I Love New York,"
Eds. Lipkin & Solotaroff, Harper & Row, 1990, v. 2)
Best
American Short Stories: 1990: "Finding
Natasha" (Houghton Mifflin 1990)
The
Literary Dog: Great Contemporary Dog Stories:
"Black and Tan" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990)
Literary
Outtakes: chapter from Soldier's
Joy, Ed. Larry Dark, Fawcett 1990
The Sound
of Writing: "Mister Potatohead in Love," (Doubleday/Anchor
1991)
A Pocket
Full of Prose: "Dragon's
Seed," (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1991)
The Wedding
Cake In The Middle Of The Road:
"Pawnshop," (Norton, 1992)
Elvis In Oz: "At Sea," University of Virginia Press, 1992
Das Grosse
Lesebuch Der Wilden Manner: "Die
Nachte Lady" (translation of The Naked Lady) Goldmann Verlag (Germany),
1992
That's What
I Like About The South:
"Hammerhead," (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1993)
Inside,
Outside '93: "Today Is A Good Day To Die (Snake Nation Press,
1992)
Legal
Fictions: "Witness" (Overlook Press, 1992)
Sommer,
Sonne, Sand und mehr...: "I Love New
York" German translation (Goldmann Verlag, 1994)
Sudden
Fiction: "The Naked Lady," (Norton, 1996)
Genesis: As
It Is Written: "The Days
of Creation" (commentary) (Harper-Collins, 1996
A Goyen
Companion: "A Memory of William Goyen" (University of
Texas Press, 1997)
Outside the
Law: "True Morality," (Beacon Press, 1997)
Truyen ngan
My duong Dai: "Tap Tuc
Mot Vung Dat" (translation of "Customs of the Country")
Vietnamese edition ed. by Wayne Karlin, Nha Xuat ban Van hoc, 1997
Joyful
Noise: The New Testament Revisited: "A
Love Supreme" (commentary) (Little Brown, 1997, eds. Rick Moody and Darcey
Steinke)
It's Only
Rock and Roll: "Never
Mind" (Boston: Godine, 1998)
The Norton
Anthology of Short Fiction,
eds. Richard Bausch and R.V. Cassill: "Witness" (New York: Norton,
2000)
The Scribner
Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction:
"Customs of the Country" eds.
Lex Williford and Michael Martone (New York: Scribner, 1999)
Literary Nashville, ed. Patrick Allen (Hill Street Press, 2000)
Three Minutes or Less: Life Lessons from America's Greatest Writers
:"Confession" (New York:
Bloomsbury, 2000)
The Cry of an
Occasion: Fiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers,
ed. Richard Bausch: "The Naked Lady" (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 2001)
Weavings
2000: The Maryland Millenial Anthology, ed. Michael
S. Glaser: "Dragon's Seed" (St. Mary's City: Forest Woods Media, 2000)
Contemporary Authors volume 183: "Our Dogs" (autobiographical
essay), (Detroit: Gale Group, 2000)[1]
New
Stories from the South: 2001-the Year's Best, ed.
Shannon Ravenel: "Two Lives" (short story), (Chapel: Hill:Algonquin
Books, 2001)
Novel
History: Historians and Novelists Confront America's Past,
ed. Mark Carnes: "Engaging the Past" (essay), (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 2001)
The
Greenwich Village Reader, ed. June Skinner Sawyers: excerpt
from The Washington Square Ensemble (New
York: Cooper Square Press, 2001)
Mitä
Ukkenon Todella Sanoi , ed. Artur Virtanen (Osakeyhtiö:
Werner Söderström, 2001) "Pakko löytää Natasha" (translation of
short story "Finding Natasha")
La Generación
encontrada: Cuentos estadounidenses contemporános, ed. Beatriz Escalante and James
Ramey (Villa Quietud, Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2002)—“La
mujer desnuda” Spanish translation of short story “The Naked Lady”
Gestschichten für Männer (Munich:
Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2003)—“Die nackte Lady” German translation
of short story “The Naked Lady”
The Best American Travel Writing, 2005,
ed. Jamaica Kincaid (New York: Houghton Mifflin 2005) “Mine of Stones.”
Twice Told Children’s Tales: The
Influence of Childhood Reading on Writers for Adults, ed. Betty
Greenaway: (New York: Routledge 2005) “A Child’s Eye Reading of Mark
Twain.”
Literature and Ourselves: a Thematic
Introduction for Readers and Writers, fifth edition, eds. Henderson,
Day & Waller (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006) “Customs of the Country”
The Best Dog Stories,
ed. Paul D. Staudohar (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2007) “Black and Tan”
High 5ive: An Anthology of Fiction from
Ten Years of Five Points, ed. Megan Sexton (New York: Carroll
& Graf 2006) “Parallel Lines”
The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite
Books
e. Peder Zane (New York: Norton 2007) list
periodical publications:
Antaeus: "Finding
Natasha," Spring 1989
Atlantic: "Black
and Tan," February 1990
Boulevard: "Holding
Together," Fall 1988
"Dragon's
Seed," Fall 1990?
Cosmopolitan (British edition):
"Monkey Park," November 1987
Harper's: "The
Naked Lady," October 1984
"Zero
db," August 1985
"Customs
of the Country," February 1988
"Witness,"
January 1990
"Small
Blue Thing" June 2000
“The
Mine of Stones” January 2004
Playboy
“The Weight of the Moon,” August 2005
Esquire
“The
Napkin” (short story) February 2007 esquire.com/napkinproject
Hudson
Review:
"Monkey Park," Vol. 38 #1, Spring 1985
"The Moon Will Be Bleeding," Vol. 41 #4, Winter 1989
Literary
Review (London):
"Zero db," October 1985
North
American Review:
"World Without End," September 1987
The Reading
Room:
Writing of
the Moment: "Master of the
Crossroads" (novel excerpt) #1
(2000)
Switch: "Monkey
Park," (Japanese translation), 1987
"Zero db," (Japanese translation), 1988
Crescent
Review
"The Naked Lady," (Vol. 1 No. 1, 1983)
"Triptych
2," (Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1984)
"The
Lie Detector," (Vol 4., No. 2, Fall 1986)
"Beggarman,
Thief," (Vol 5, No. 1, 1987)
Columbia "Irene,"
(no. 7, 1982)
"The
Year of Silence," (no. 12, 1987)
Witness
"The Forgotten Bridge," (vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 1987)
Stories "Feast
of the Assumption," (No. 18, 1987)
Greensboro
Review
"I've Got a Secret," (No. 42, Summer 1987)
Lowlands
Review
"The Structure and Meaning of DFS," (no. 8, 1979)
Poughkeepsie
Review
"The Girl in the Black Raincoat," (Summer 1987)
Green
Mountains Review
"I Love New York" (no. 13, Spring 1984)
Tennessee
Illustrated
"Last Go-Round," (Vol. 2, No. 1, January/ February 1989)
America
Illustrated
"Black and Tan," (1990?)
The Russian language magazine
of the U.S. Information Agency
Story "Cash
Machine," spring, 1991
Vox "Pawnshop,"
Vol I, No. 1, spring 1991
Northwest
Review
"Barking Man," volume 28, #1
Gentlemen's
Quarterly
"Summertime," August 1992
Witness "The
Life of Georgie," Vol. VI # 1 1992
Ploughshares "The
Rights Of Man," Vol. 19 # 4, Winter 1993-94
Boulevard "A
Consummation," Vol. 9 # 1&2, Spring 1994
Witness "Blood
Harvest," Vol. VIII #1, 1994
Southern
Review
"The Dead," Vol. 30, #2, Spring 1994
Image "I
am Not I," #10, Summer 1995
Flyway
"A Barbecue," Vol. 1-1 Spring 1995
Agni Review "In
The Camps," #42, Fall 1995
Columbia "Confession,"
#21, 1993
North
American Review
"Hill Country," Vol 279, #4, July/August 1995
Antaeus "Three
Lovers," #73/74 Spring 1994
Boulevard "Happy
Families Are All Alike" (filmscript-- collaboration
with Andrew Moore) #
31 & 32, Spring 1996
New
Millenium
"Mistress And Maid" Vol. 1, #1, Spring & Summer 1996
Granta
"Waiting For The General"
#54, Summer 1996
Image "I
Am Not I," #10, 1995
Conjunctions Prologue
from The War of Knives,"
#27, 1996
Gulf Coast "I
Ain't Blue", Volume VIII # 2 1996
Chattahoochee
Review
"Mister Jones" (memoir), Volume XVII #1
Widener
Review
"Zig Zag Wanderer" Vol
11, 1997
Creative
Nonfiction
"Sa'm Pèdi" (nonfiction essay) #
9, 1998
Washington
Post Book World
"Guided By Voices" (nonfiction essay) May
10, 1998
Creative Nonfiction
"Action de Grace" (nonfiction essay) 10, 1998
The Oxford
American
"Leadbelly in Paris" (short story) #27
& 28, Summer 1999
Creative
Nonfiction
"Soul in a Bottle" (essay) # 14, 2000
Meridian
"Two
Lives" (short story) # 5, Spring 2000
The Reading Room:
Writing of the
Moment "Master
of the Crossroads" (novel excerpt) # 1, 2000
Virginia
Quarterly Review
"Whose God to Follow" (novel excerpt) V.
26 #4, Autumn 2000
The
Idaho Review
"Bonne
Route, Blanc" (novel excerpt) V. 3, 2001
Gulf
Coast
"Two
Fathers" (novel excerpt) V.XIII,
#1, Winter 2001
New
England Review
"Labor" (novel excerpt) V. 21, #4, Fall 2000
Five
Points
"The Prisoner in the Fort de Joux" (novel
excerpt) V. 5, #1,
Fall 2000
Washington
Post
"Top
of the World" (short story) Travel section, November 12, 2000
Daedalus:
Journal of the
American
Academy
of
Arts and Sciences,
“Petrified Forest" (short story) Summer 2002
Rattapallax “Fall on Me” short (short story) 2004
Playboy “The
Weight of the Moon,” (short story) August 2005
Baltimore Magazine,
“Baltimore Falls” (short story) September 2005
Illuminations “Vanishing
Sky” (short story) Issue 22
August 2006
Esquire
“The
Napkin” (short story) February 2007 esquire.com/napkinproject
essays and book reviews:
Antaeus: "Literature
and Pleasure: Bridging the Gap," #59, September 1987
Chronicles: "An
Interview with George Garrett," June 1988; "An Interview with Andrew Lytle," September 1988
Harper's: "Less
Is Less: The Dwindling American Short Story," April 1986
Switch: "Less
Is Less," (Japanese translation), 1988
Rediscoveries
II: "Do,
Lord, Remember Me," (Carroll & Graf, 1988)
Columbia: "Throwing
Dirt on the Grave of Minimalism," (Panel Discussion, No. 14, 1989)
Chronicles: "Time
and the Tide in the Southern Short Story," March 1991
The World
and I: "Blood
and Guts in the Bookstore" (critical essay) April 1992
Chattahoochee
Review: "An
Essay Introducing His Work In Rather A Lunatic Fashion," Vol xii # 1, Fall
1991
Manoa: "Book-Reviewing
For Better or Worse," Vol 3, #2, Fall 1991
Critical Preface to A
Wake For The Living, by Andrew Lytle (J.S. Sanders & Co. 1992)
Critical
Essays On Peter Taylor: "The Mastery of Peter Taylor" (G.K. Hall, 1993)
"Where an Author Might Be Standing" (essay on
William Vollman), The Review of
Contemporary Fiction, Volume 13, no. 2, Summer 1993
"The Short Story Revival (Or Whatever It Was): An
Impressionistic History and Diatribe" Mississippi
Review, vol 21, Numbers 1 & 2
"A Memory of William Goyen," Mid-American
Review, Volume 13, no. 1, 1992
The Craft
of Peter Taylor, C. Ralph
Stephens and Linda B. Salamon (eds.), "Two Audiences for Emmagene," (Univ
of Alabama Press, 1995)
Hudson
Review, "Miroir Danjere," Winter 1996, vol xlviii # 4
George, "The 20 Most Fascinating Women in Politics"
(profile of Carolyn Chute), September 1996
Esquire, "Virgin Maryland," July 1996
New York
Times Magazine, "Bar,
None" (LIVES section), March 3, 1996
Preface to The King
of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You by George Garrett (Harvest/Harcourt
Brace, 1997)
Myth, Legend,
Dust: Critical responses to Cormac McCarthy,
ed. Rick Wallach: "A Writer's View of Cormac McCarthy" (New York and
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000)
Introduction to God's
Country (novel) by Percival Everett (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003)
A
Certain Somewhere: Writers on the Places They Remember,
ed. Robert Wilson (New York: Random House, 2002): "The Fire This Time"
(essay).
Conversations
with Mary Gordon, ed. Alma Bennett (Jackson:
University of Mississippi Press, 2002) "The
Writing Life: Madison Smartt Bell hosts Mary Gordon" (interview)
Los Angeles Times, “A
Wave that Washes Over All Haitians” February 12 2004
Twice Told Children’s Tales: The
Influence of Childhood Reading on Writers for Adults, ed.
Betty
Greenaway: (New York: Routledge 2005) “A Child’s Eye Reading of Mark
Twain.”
The Oxford American Issue
53, Winter 2006—“Emerging Southern Writers: John McManus”
The Los Angeles Times
March 31 2006 “Back Haiti or Back Off” (op-ed)
I giacobani negri by CLR
James “Postfazione alla nuova edizione Italiana” (Rome: Derive Approdi 2006
Multitudes
“Kreyol Pale Kreyol Konprann” issue 22 Automne 2005
Journal of Haitian Studies
“Toussaint Between Two Worlds” (essay) v. 11 #2, Fall 2005
Bomb “Judith
Linhares” (interview) #97 Fall 2006
Polite
“Pastisomane”
(feuilleton) Spring 2007
Book reviewer for the New
York Times Book Review, the Village
Voice, the Philadelphia Inquirer,
the London Standard, the North
American Review, the L.A. Times Book
Review, the Boston Globe, Southern Magazine, and others.
Girl With
Curious Hair by David Foster
Wallace, Washington Post, 1989
Lights Out
in the Reptile House by Jim Sheperd, Washington
Post 1990
The Other
Side by Mary Gordon, New
York Times Book Review, 1989
The
Pilgrim's Rules of Etiquette by Taghi
Modarressi, Philadelphia Inquirer, 1989
The Rainbow
Stories by William Vollman, Philadelphia
Inquirer 1989
Caverns by O.U. Levon (Ken Kesey et. al.), Village Voice Literary Supplement) February 1990
The Salt
Point by Paul Russell,
Village Voice 1990
Many Things
Have Happened Since He Died by
Elizabeth Dewberry Vaughn, Washington
Post, 1990
My Life and
Doctor Joyce Brothers by Kelly Cherry, Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, 1990
Godchildren by Charles Casey Martin, Philadelphia Inquirer, 1990
The
Homestead by Chilton Williamson, Chronicles, May 1990
The Music of Chance