Dan Wakefield
| Born |
May 21, 1932 Indianapolis, Indiana, United States |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Novelist, journalist, screenwriter |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Notable works |
Going All the Way (1970) Starting Over (1973) New York in the Fifties (1992) |
| Website | |
| danwakefield |
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Dan Wakefield (born 1932) is an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter.
His best-selling novels Going All The Way (1970) and Starting Over (1973) were made into feature films.
He wrote the screenplay of Going All The Way, which starred Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz and Rose McGowan.
He created the NBC prime time television series “James at 15” (1977-78) and served as story editor of the series (1977).
His other notable works include Island in the City: The World of Spanish Harlem, (1959) a pioneering journalistic account of a Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York, and the memoir New York in the Fifties, (2001) produced as a documentary film by Betsy Blankenbaker. His memoir Returning: A Spiritual Journey (1988) was called by Bill Moyers “one of the most important memoirs of the spirit I have ever read.” He edited and wrote the Introduction to Kurt Vonnegut Letters (2012.) Wakefield received The Bernard DeVoto Fellowship at The Bread Loaf Writer Conference in 1958, a Nieman Fellowship in Journalism (1963-64) and a Rockefeller Grant in Writing, 1968.
Wakefield retired as Writer in Residence at Florida International University (1995-2009) where he received The Faculty Award for Mentorship. He moved back to his hometown of Indianapolis in 2011.
Dan Wakefield was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, where his family lived in the Broad Ripple neighborhood.
He went to Public School #80 and Shortridge High School, where he began his writing career as a sports columnist for the school newspaper, The Shortridge Daily Echo, and served as the school’s sports correspondent for The Indianapolis Star. He worked summers during college in The Star sports department, and as a general assignment reporter for The Grand Rapids Press.
He left Indianapolis in 1952 for New York City, where he was graduated from Columbia College, with a B.A. with Honors in English, after studying with noted English professors Mark Van Doren and Lionel Trilling, and the sociologist C. Wright Mills.
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