Sarah Vowell
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Sarah Jane Vowell (born December 27, 1969) is an American author, journalist, and regular contributor to the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International.
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[edit] Background
Vowell was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She earned a B.A. from Montana State University in 1993 and an M.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. Vowell received the Music Journalism Award in 1996.
Deemed a social observer, Vowell has made public appearances in Amsterdam, Seattle, Aspen, and has made appearances on television shows like Nightline, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Late Show with David Letterman. She also makes regular appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Her writing has been published in The Village Voice, Esquire, GQ, Spin, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The San Francisco Weekly, and she has been a regular contributor to the online magazine Salon.
Vowell currently lives in Chelsea, a residential neighborhood in Manhattan known for its gay population. She cannot swim, is afraid of heights, and does not drive a car; she usually enlists the aid of her friends and family to drive her to plaques and graves when doing research. She suffers from celiac sprue, in which the body has an auto-immune reaction to gluten. Vowell is an atheist.[1]
Vowell is part Cherokee (about 1/8th on her mother’s side and 1/16th on her father’s side). According to Vowell, “Being at least a little Cherokee in northeastern Oklahoma is about as rare and remarkable as being a Michael Jordan fan in Chicago.” She retraced the path of the forced removal of the Cherokee from the southeastern United States to Oklahoma known as the Trail of Tears with her twin sister Amy. This was chronicled on the July 4th episode of This American Life in 1998, which was devoted entirely to the story. [2]
For the audio recording of her 2002 book, Vowell was able to call upon such friends as Conan O'Brien, Seth Green, Stephen Colbert, David Cross, Paul Begala, Michael Chabon, Norman Lear, and They Might Be Giants to contribute to the reading. The resulting excerpts were posted in McSweeney's Internet Tendency.[3]
In 2004, Vowell provided the voice of Violet Parr, the shy teenager in the Brad Bird-directed Pixar animated film The Incredibles and reprised her role for the various related video games. The makers of The Incredibles discovered Vowell from episode 81 – Guns of This American Life where she and her father fire a homemade cannon. Pixar made a test animation for Violet using audio from that sequence, which is included on the DVD version of The Incredibles. She also provided Violet's voice for the Disney on Ice presentation, The Incredibles in a Magic Kingdom Adventure.
She also wrote and was featured in Vowellet: An Essay by Sarah Vowell included on the DVD version of The Incredibles, where she reflects on the differences between being super hero Violet and being an author of history books on the subject of assassinated presidents, and what it means to her nephew Owen.
In 2005, Vowell served as a guest columnist for the New York Times during several weeks in July, briefly filling in for Maureen Dowd.
In February 2006, Vowell, once again, served as a guest columnist for the New York Times. Most recently (April 2006). She also provided commentary in "Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley", which is part of the History Channel miniseries, "10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America", and served as a presenter at the 27th Annual Kentucky Women Writers Conference, which took place from April 20-23, 2006.
In September 2006, Vowell appeared as a minor character in the ABC drama Six Degrees.
In August and September of 2006, she toured around the United States as part of the Revenge Of The Book Eaters.national tour, which benefits the childrens literacy centers 826NYC, 826CHI, 826 Valencia, 826LA, 826 Michigan, and 826 Seattle.
She is currently (according to the Steven Barclay Agency website) working on her fifth book, tentatively titled "Puritan Nation".
[edit] Trivia
- Vowell's twin sister Amy gave her a hair of abolitionist guerrilla warrior John Brown for Christmas, which now decorates her wall. According to her book Assassination Vacation, she gave Amy a DVD player.
[edit] Bibliography
- 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
[edit] External radio links
Sarah Vowell has pieces featured on the following episodes of This American Life:
- 31 – When you talk about music
- 45 – Media fringe
- 54 – Sinatra
- 56 – Name change
- 58 – Small towns
- 65 – Who's Canadian?
- 67 – Your dream, my nightmare
- 70 – Other people's mail
- 76 – Mob
- 81 – Guns
- 90 – Telephone - Act II deals with They Might Be Giants' Dial-A-Song
- 94 – How to
- 97 – Death to wacky
- 104 – Music lessons
- 107 – Trail of tears, devoted entirely to Sarah Vowell's story about the Trail of Tears
- 114 – Last words
- 118 – What you lookin' at?
- 125 – Apocalypse
- 128 – Four corners
- 129 – Advice
- 141 – Invisible worlds
- 148 – The angels wanna wear my red suit
- 151 – Primary
- 167 – Memo to the people of the future
- 174 – Birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones
- 191 – I know what you did this summer
- 226 – Reruns
- 235 – The balloon goes up
- 239 – Lost in America, including a story about The Battle Hymn of the Republic and John Brown
- 244 – MacGyver
- 247 – What is this thing?
- 256 – Living without
- 277 – Apology
- 291 – Reunited
- 305 – This American Life Holiday Spectacular - Listen to "Christmas at Valley Forge" (lyrics by Sarah Vowell, music by Marah)
[edit] External links
- Steven Barclay Agency, Sarah Vowell page
- Sarah Vowell at the Internet Movie Database
- Consonant Vowells: Sarah Vowell on This American Life
- Soapbox: A Sampling of 20th Century Political Speech Hosted by Sarah Vowell
- Sarah Vowell on NPR's Talk of the Nation
- Sarah Vowell interview on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross
- Sarah Vowell interview on Radio KPSU, Portland, Oregon
- Sarah Vowell on 90.1 KERA FM's "The Talk Show" (March 1, 2006)
- Sarah Vowell, entry on the They Might Be Giants wiki
- Sarah Vowell on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" (February 21, 2006)
- Sarah Vowell's columns in The New York Times
- 826 NYC
- Sarah Vowell on KPFA FM's "Cover to Cover with Richard Wolinsky" (February 23, 2006)
- Sarah Vowell interview with Robert Birnbaum at IdentityTheory.com
- Kentucky Women Writers Conference
- Sarah Vowell interview in the Contra Costa Times (from April 2, 2006)
- Sarah Vowell talks about Abraham Lincoln on Studio 360
- Sarah Vowell discusses "Assassination Vacation" on "New Letters on the Air" (KCUR 89.3 FM)
- Information about the "Revenge of the Book Eaters" tour
Categories: 1969 births | American columnists | American essayists | American journalists | American radio personalities | American travel writers | American voice actors | American atheists | Living people | Montana State University alumni | Native American writers | People from Oklahoma | American public radio personalities | Twins | School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni