Mark Childress facts for kids

Mark Childress (born 1957) is an American novelist and Southern writer.

Biography

Born in Monroeville, Alabama, Childress grew up in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, and Louisiana. He is a member of the Mallet Assembly at the University of Alabama. In 1978, Childress was a reporter for The Birmingham News, Features Editor of Southern Living magazine, and Regional Editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A former resident of Dallas and New York, he lives in Key West, Florida.

Articles and reviews by Childress have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the Saturday Review, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Travel and Leisure, and other national and international publications.

He wrote three picture books for children: Joshua and Bigtooth, Joshua and the Big Bad Blue Crabs, and Henry Bobbity Is Missing And It Is All Billy Bobbity's Fault.

His novel, Crazy in Alabama, was published on July 22, 1993. He wrote the screenplay for Antonio Banderas' directorial debut film adaptation.

Awards

Childress won the Thomas Wolfe Award, the University of Alabama's Distinguished Alumni Award, and the Alabama Library Association's Writer of the Year.

Tender, a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection, was named to several Ten Best of 1990 lists, and appeared on many national bestseller lists.

Crazy in Alabama was selected by the Literary Guild on many bestseller lists and Ten Best of 1993 lists. The novel was The (London) Spectator's "Book of the Year" for 1993 and a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year", and was on the Der Spiegel bestseller list in Germany for ten months. The film adaptation premiered at the Venice Film Festival and San Sebastian International Film Festival.

One Mississippi was a summer reading selection of Good Morning America, O: The Oprah Magazine, People magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and was nominated for the Southeastern Independent Booksellers Association's "Book of the Year" award. Stephen King named One Mississippi as #3 on his list of the "Ten Best Books of 2006" in Entertainment Weekly.