Gary Amdahl

Gary Amdahl
Born August 4, 1956
Jackson, Minnesota
Notable works Visigoth, Across My Big Brass Bed
Notable awards Pushcart Prize in 2000
Spouse Leslie Brody

Gary Byrdelle Amdahl is an American author, born August 4, 1956, in Jackson, Minnesota.[1] He attended public schools, and graduated from Robbinsdale High School in 1974. In 1978, while studying English Literature at the University of Minnesota, Amdahl began to write theater reviews for the UM Daily (a paid position, the paper's circulation approximately 40,000 at that time). This work led to the writing of a script, which was part of an application for fellowship at The Playwrights' Center. Mark Frost, one of the Center's founders, who was shortly to depart for Hollywood and fame as co-creator of Twin Peaks, recommended acceptance. Other fellows included August Wilson, Lee Blessing, and Kevin Kling.

Several of Amdahl's plays were produced in the Twin Cities in the 1980s, at such venues as The Illusion Theater, Actors' Theater of Saint Paul, The Cricket, and Brass Tacks Theater Collective. In 1986, Amdahl graduated from UM and attended Cornell University for a semester. He began to write book reviews and stories, publishing fiction in Gordon Lish's The Quarterly, and the prestigious Fiction. In 2000, he won a Pushcart Prize for his essay, “Narrow Road to the Deep North,” an examination of the causes of the murder of his uncle, a farmer in Jackson, Minnesota, by an ex-Green Beret suffering from PTSD. In 2001, Santa Monica Review, under Andrew Tonkovich, began publishing his stories and novellas regularly, which led to the publication of his first book, Visigoth, in 2006.

Amdahl has published six books, and produced nine plays. He was awarded two Jerome Fellowships at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, and was a participant in Midwest Playlabs in 1985. His stories, essays, poetry (original, translated, and set to music), book and theater reviews, literary feature articles, and interviews have appeared in Spolia, AGNI, A Public Space, The Massachusetts Review, The Gettysburg Review, Fiction, The Quarterly, Santa Monica Review, Third Bed, Minnetonka Review, New York Times Book Review, The Nation, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Hungry Mind Review, and many other monthlies, weeklies, and dailies.

Amdahl has been married to author Leslie Brody since 1989.

Books

Plays

References

  1. ↑ Interview with Gary Amdal
  2. ↑ , Across My Big Brass Bed page
  3. ↑ , The Intimidator Still Lives in Our Hearts page
  4. ↑ , I Am Death page
  5. ↑ , Visigoth page
  6. ↑ , A Motel of the Mind page

External links