ZZ Packer
{{short description|American writer}}
{{update|date=January 2022}}
{{Infobox writer
| image = Zz packer 2009.jpg
| imagesize = 200px
| name = ZZ Packer
| caption =ZZ Packer at the 2009 Texas Book Festival.
| pseudonym =
| birth_name = Zuwena Packer
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1973|1|12|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation =
| period = 2000-present
| genre =
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| website =
}}
Zuwena "ZZ" Packer (born January 12, 1973) is an American writer, primarily of works of short fiction. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, a Whiting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her book Drinking Coffee Elsewhere won the Commonwealth First Fiction Award and an ALEX award.{{Cite web |title=2004 Alex Awards {{!}} Young Adult Library Services Association |url=https://www.ala.org/yalsa/2004-alex-awards |access-date=2024-12-18 |website=www.ala.org |language=en}} It became a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award and was selected for the Today Show Book Club by John Updike.{{Cite web |title=ZZ Packer {{!}} Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs |url=https://home.watson.brown.edu/people/faculty/senior-fellows/alumni/zz-packer |access-date=2024-12-18 |website=home.watson.brown.edu |language=en}}
Early life and education
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Packer grew up in Atlanta, Georgia,{{Cite web |title=ZZ Packer reading kicks off renowned authors series {{!}} Emory University {{!}} Atlanta GA |url=https://news.emory.edu/stories/2016/10/er_zz_packer/index.html |access-date=2024-05-18 |website=news.emory.edu |language=en}} and Louisville, Kentucky. "ZZ" was a childhood nickname; her given name is Zuwena.{{Cite web |last=Birnbaum |first=Robert |date=2003-04-29 |title=ZZ Packer - Identity Theory |url=https://www.identitytheory.com/zz-packer/ |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=www.identitytheory.com |language=en-US}}{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/contemporaryauth0221unse |title=Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields |date=2004 |publisher=Gale |isbn=978-0-7876-6701-6 |editor-last=Kumar |editor-first=Lisa |series=Gale eBooks |volume=221 |location=Detroit, Mich |pages=xv, 366-368 |issn=0010-7468}} Packer enjoyed reading from a young age, visiting the local library daily with her mother in Atlanta. Her writing was published in the magazine Seventeen at the age of 19. Packer is a 1990 graduate of Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky.{{Cite book |url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191872112.001.0001/acref-9780191872112 |title=The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature |date=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-187211-2 |editor-last=Hart |editor-first=James D. |edition=2 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780191872112.001.0001 |editor-last2=Martin |editor-first2=Wendy |editor-last3=Hinrichs |editor-first3=Danielle}}
Packer attended Yale University, receiving her BA in 1994. Her graduate work included an MA at Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop of the University of Iowa in 1999, where she was mentored by James Alan McPherson.{{Cite web |date=2023-04-05 |title=Member Bonus: ZZ Packer on the Life and Work of James Alan McPherson |url=https://ursastory.com/member-bonus-zz-packer-james-alan-mcpherson/ |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=Ursa Story Company |language=en-US}}
Career
Her work was first published in the Debut Fiction issue of The New Yorker in 2000. Her short story in the issue became the title story in her collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. As Publishers Weekly put it, "this debut short story collection is getting the highest of accolades from the New York Times, Harper's, the New Yorker and most every other branch of the literary criticism tree."[http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?z=y&ean=9781573223782&displayonly=REV#REV "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere"], Barnes & Noble.
"ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is taught in creative writing courses nationwide and with good reason. This short story collection is brimming with characters who are striving to find themselves, to understand themselves, and to survive", commented novelist Colson Whitehead.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bookbub.com/blog/recommendations-from-pulitzer-prize-winners|title=10 Books Recommended by Pulitzer Prize Winners|website=www.bookbub.com}}
In an interview when Packer was a Radcliffe Fellow, in 2015, she reported that she working on a novel set during Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War.{{Cite news |last=Walsh |first=Colleen |date=2015-03-20 |title=Plotting Her Return |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/03/plotting-her-return/ |work=The Harvard Gazette}} The novel-in-progress, The Thousands, "chronicles the lives of black, white, and Native American families shortly after the Civil War, through Reconstruction and the Indian Campaigns in the Southwest".{{Cite web |date=2016-10-03 |title=Video: ZZ Packer |url=https://www.pw.org/content/zz_packer |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=Poets & Writers |language=en}} She has been regularly contributing to The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker.
Works
= Books =
class="wikitable"
|+ !Year !Title |
2003 |
= Anthologies =
== Other works ==
Awards
= Other honors =
class="wikitable"
|+ !Year !Title |
2006
|5 under 35 honoree by the National Book Foundation{{Cite web|title=5 Under 35 Archives|url=https://www.nationalbook.org/award_type/5-under-35/|access-date=2020-12-06|website=National Book Foundation|language=en-US}} |
2007
|America's Best Young Novelists by Grantahttp://www.granta.com/Magazine/97October 2007 |
2007
|Smithsonian Magazine's Young InnovatorsTessa Decarlo, [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/innovators/packer.html "Comedienne of Manners"], Smithsonian magazine, October 2007. |
2010
|The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers.{{cite news|last=Bosman|first=Julie|date=2010-06-02|title=20 Young Writers Earn the Envy of Many Others|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/books/03under.html?scp=1&sq=new%20yorker%2040&st=cse}} |
Teaching
Fellowships
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
- [http://www.whiting.org/awards/winners/zz-packer#/ Profile at The Whiting Foundation]
- [https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-books-biblioracle-0128-story.html From Matthew Klam to ZZ Packer: Some writers are worth the wait]
- [https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/03/plotting-her-return/ Plotting her return]
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/books/the-nobel-prize-waiting-game-a-year-for-long-shots-.html The Nobel Prize Waiting Game: A Year for Long Shots?]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Packer, ZZ}}
Category:21st-century American novelists
Category:African-American novelists
Category:American women novelists
Category:American women short story writers
Category:Pseudonymous women writers
Category:American historical novelists
Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni
Category:Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
Category:University of Iowa alumni
Category:Yale University alumni
Category:Baltimore City College faculty
Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty
Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
Category:People from Pacifica, California
Category:21st-century American women writers
Category:Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award winners
Category:Seneca High School (Louisville, Kentucky) alumni
Category:21st-century American short story writers
Category:PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners
Category:Novelists from California
Category:Novelists from Kentucky
Category:Novelists from Illinois
Category:Novelists from Georgia (U.S. state)
Category:21st-century pseudonymous writers
Category:21st-century African-American women writers
Category:21st-century African-American writers