Madison Smartt Bell (b. 1957)

Biography

Author Madison Smartt Bell was born and raised in Tennessee. He has lived in New York and in London, and currently makes his home in Baltimore, Maryland. Bell graduated from Princeton University in 1979 and Hollins College in 1981. He is the author of nine novels including Soldier's Joy which received the Lillian Smith Award in 1989. His 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. Bell has taught in various creative writing programs, including the Iowa Writer's Workshop and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. Since 1984 he has taught at Goucher College, where he is currently Writer In Residence with his wife, poet Elizabeth Spires. In 1999 Bell was appointed as Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College.

Bibliography

Fiction

• The Washington Square Ensemble (1983)
• Waiting For The End Of The World (1985)
• Straight Cut (1986)
• The Year Of Silence (1987)
• Soldier's Joy (1989)
• Doctor Sleep (1991)
• Save Me, Joe Louis (1993)
• All Souls' Rising (1995)
• Ten Indians (1996)
• Master of the Crossroads (2000)
• Anything Goes (2002)

Non-Fiction

• History of the Owen School: From its Early Origins to 1984 (1985)
• Narrative Design: A Writer's Guide to Structure (1997)
• Ploughshares: At Emerson College, Winter 1999-00 (editor, with Elizabeth Spires, 1999)
• Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form (2000)

Short Fiction

• Interviews with the Unfamous and Other Stories (Master's Thesis, Hollins University, 1981)
• Zero db and Other Stories (1987)
• Barking Man and Other Stories (1990)

Sources and Links

• Writer's cut of All Souls Rising and other stories by M.S. Bell
• Goucher College professor page for Madison Smartt Bell--excerpts, biography and pictures
• Ploughshares articles by or about Bell

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