Mitch Cullin

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Mitch Cullin
Born 23 March 1968(1968-03-23)
Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Occupation Writer, Producer
Genres Literary fiction, Documentary film

Mitch Cullin (born March 23, 1968 in Santa Fe, New Mexico) is an American writer of Scotch-Irish and Cherokee descent. He is the author of seven novels, one of which is in verse, and a short story collection. He currently resides in Arcadia, California and Tokyo, Japan with his partner and frequent collaborator Peter I. Chang.[1][2] His books have been translated into over 10 languages, among them French,[3] Polish,[4] Japanese,[5] and Italian.[6]

The New York Times has described Cullin's writing as "brilliant and beautiful,"[7] but the author has confessed that "half the time I'm not even sure why I make choices in writing, or how it works when it works."[8]

Cullin's novel Tideland was adapted for the screen and directed by Terry Gilliam[9] in 2003, and the author also made a brief cameo appearance in the film, later stating about his time on the set: "There was a part of me that wanted to watch and experience every aspect of what Terry was doing… and he allowed me to do that while I was there if I wished to… but at the same time, I didn’t want his process to become too demystified… because I wanted to buy a ticket someday and sit down in a dark theater and simply watch the film without knowing too much about how it was filmed."[10] Despite mixed reviews from critics, Gilliam's film adaptation won the 2005 FIPRESCI prize at San Sebastian International Film Festival[11]

In 2005, Cullin published his seventh novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, a portrait of Sherlock Holmes in old age for which The New York Times praised the author as being "an unusually sophisticated theorist of human nature,"[12] and Carolyn See of The Washington Post stated that "you don't read it to be 'improved' but for the plain joy of seeing what the language can do in the hands of an affectionate, very accomplished writer."[13] The audiobook edition the novel won the Audio Publishers Association's 2006 Audie Awards for Unabridged Fiction.[14]

Cullin's eighth novel The Post-War Dream was published by Random House in March 2008.[15]

According to the New York Times, a film version of Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind is in pre-production with the producers Anthony Bregman, Ted Hope, and Anne Carey, with a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher. Ben Kingsley is attached to star, and Yann Samuell is listed as the director[16].

Contents

[edit] Career

While attending the University of Houston in the mid 1990s, Cullin befriended the author Mary Gaitskill. Gaitskill taught him in several writing classes. She remained a mentor after he dropped out of college and moved to Tucson, Arizona to write.[17] Since then, Cullin and Gaitskill have stayed friends, and in 2005 they did a one-on-one author appearance at Manhattan's Housing Works.[18]

Some of Cullin's early unpublished writings (including Afternoon Misdemeanors, The House of Special Purpose, and 6 Poems) are housed at Syracuse University in its archive collection of poet scholar Robert S. Phillips' papers, letters, manuscripts, and correspondence.[19]

Along with writers including Salman Rushdie and Amy Tan, Cullin is a founding author of the non-profit Red Room website.[20]

[edit] Music and film work

Cullin has worked with Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, helping to design the cover and logo for Gelb's 2003 solo album The Listener. The following year, with Canadian musicians Todd Bryanton and Rob Bryanton, he co-wrote the song "Lift Me Up To Sweet Jesus" for the soundtrack of Terry Gilliam's Tideland, a film based on his novel of the same name, and in which he has a cameo appearance.[21] Cullin is credited as the producer of Peter I. Chang's film I Want to Destroy America, a documentary about the life of Hisao Shinagawa[22].

[edit] Works

[edit] Novels

[edit] Short Story Collections

[edit] Anthologies

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Red Room bio
  2. ^ Weeks, Jerome (May 11, 2005), “A cult writer creates some mainstream buzz”, Dallas Morning News, <http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-6557412_ITM>. Retrieved on 28 January 2008 
  3. ^ France (Editions Naive)
  4. ^ Polish edition
  5. ^ Japan (Kadokawa)
  6. ^ Italy (Giano Editore)
  7. ^ 09/24/2000 New York Times
  8. ^ Publishers Weekly profile
  9. ^ Tideland The Movie
  10. ^ Dreams interview
  11. ^ 2005 SSIFF
  12. ^ New York Times review
  13. ^ Washington Post
  14. ^ Audie Awards
  15. ^ Random House
  16. ^ A Slight Trick of the Mind movie details from NYTimes
  17. ^ Publishers Weekly profile
  18. ^ Hogan, Ron. Pages from the social Diary. Beatrice.com (blog). Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
  19. ^ Robert S. Phillips Papers. Syracuse University. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
  20. ^ RedRoom writer profile. Red Room. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
  21. ^ Soundtrack for Tideland. IMDB. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
  22. ^ A rock 'n' roll dream that won't die

[edit] External links