Ed Burns

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Baltimore television writer; for other people with the same name, see Edward Burns (disambiguation).
Ed Burns

Occupation Novelist, Television Writer
Nationality American
Subjects Crime fiction, True crime
Notable work(s) The Wire

Ed Burns is an Edgar Award winning television writer. He usually works with his writing partner David Simon. They have collaborated on The Corner and The Wire. Burns is a former Baltimore detective and a public school teacher and often draws upon this experience for his writing.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Burns served in the Baltimore Police Department for twenty years.[2] From 1987-1989 Burns, a member of the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Division, was detailed to the FBI, where he helped in the arrest and convictions of several members of the Warren Boardley drug organization in the Lexington Terrace projects. Following that detail, Burns worked with the DEA in arresting and convicting another violent drug trafficker, Linwood "Rudy" Williams.

Burns is also a Vietnam veteran, having served in the infantry.[2] Following his retirement he stumbled into teaching in the Baltimore public school system and later became a writer.[2]

[edit] Teaching

Burns has said that he stumbled into teaching with little preparation because of the intense demand for teachers in inner-city schools.[2] Burns taught seventh grade. Psychologically he compared the experience of teaching to Vietnam.[2] He found the experience profoundly challenging because of the emotional damage that the vast majority of his students had already experienced before reaching the classroom and felt that more than being able to teach, his primary role was in modeling caring behavior.[2] He he felt his major impact was in giving the children an example of an "adult who's consistent, who's always there, who always comes through with what he said, then that's a new world for them."[2]

[edit] The Corner

See also: The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood

In 1997 he co-authored, with Simon, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market.[3] Simon credits his editor John Sterling with the suggestion that he observe a single drug corner.[4] It was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times.[5] An adaptation of the book, also called The Corner, was produced as a six-hour TV miniseries for HBO.[6] The show received three Emmy Awards.[6]

[edit] The Wire

See also: The Wire (TV series)

Burns is a writer and co-creator (also with Simon) of the HBO series The Wire. They originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on Burns' experiences working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology. He had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."[7]

They chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from the 2000 miniseries The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot.[7][8]

The theme of institutional dysfunction was expanded across different areas of the city as the show progressed. The second season focused on the death of working class America through examination of the city ports.[9] The third season "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." [9] Burns has called education the theme of the fourth season. The writing drew extensively on his experience as a teacher. Rather than solely focusing on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for.[2] The fifth and final season focuses on the media's coverage of crime and corruption in Baltimore, tapping into Simon's past with The Sun.

[edit] Future projects

He is working on another collaboration with Simon - an adaptation of Generation Kill for HBO.[10]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Corner: About the Author. Random House. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h A Teacher in Baltimore. HBO. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
  3. ^ The Corner: About the Book. Random House. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
  4. ^ Neil Drumming. High Wire Act. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
  5. ^ Notable Books of the Year 1997 - Non-Fiction. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-09-29.
  6. ^ a b Mary Alice Blackwell. Fun comes down to 'The Wire'. Daily Progress. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
  7. ^ a b Ian Rothkirch (2002). "What drugs have not destroyed, the war on them has". Salon.com.
  8. ^ Alvarez, Rafael (2004). The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Pocket Books, 18–19, 35–39. 
  9. ^ a b Richard Vine. "Totally Wired", The Guardian Unlimited. 
  10. ^ HBO drafts cast for 'Kill' mini. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.