Tom Bissell
Encyclopedia
Tom Bissell is a journalist, critic, and fiction writer, originally from Escanaba, Michigan
and currently based in Portland, Oregon
.
in East Lansing. In 1996, the 22-year-old went to Uzbekistan
as a volunteer for the Peace Corps
. He was there for seven months before returning home. He then worked as a book editor in New York City
and published, among other books, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates
and Paula Fox
's memoir Borrowed Finery..
He writes for Harper's Magazine
, Slate
, The New Republic, and The Virginia Quarterly Review
, where he is a contributing editor.
While much of Bissell's magazine writing could be considered travel writing, his articles are more concerned with politics, history, and autobiography than tourism.
As a journalist he traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan during wartime.
While Bissell has been critical of neo-conservatism, the Bush administration, and American unilateralism, his politics often do not fit within established categories of American liberalism and conservatism.
Much of his work is concerned with the legacy of the Soviet Union and Communism.
His book in collaboration with Jeff Alexander, "Speak, Commentary," is a collection of fake DVD commentaries for popular films by political figures and pundits such as Noam Chomsky
, Dinesh D'Souza
and Ann Coulter
. His other books have won several prizes, including the Rome Prize
, the Anna Akhmatova Prize, and the Best Travel Writing Award from Peace Corps Writers. His short stories and journalism have also been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories
, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Science Writing.
He is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review
.
Bissell's father served in the Marines
during the Vietnam War
, alongside author and journalist Philip Caputo
. The two remained friends during Bissell's childhood and Caputo read and encouraged him in his early writing efforts. He has cited Caputo as a major influence, along with Michigan writers Jim Harrison
and Thomas McGuane
.
While much of Bissell's writing is concerned with issues of international relations and literary criticism, he frequently mentions Star Wars
, J.R.R. Tolkien, and video games as well. The video game Gears of War 2
, the first version of which Bissell wrote about for The New Yorker, contains a character named Hank Bissell, an apparent nod to him. In a March 2010 Observer
article, he wrote about the appeal of games like Grand Theft Auto IV
and his own simultaneous struggles with addiction to video games and cocaine.
In May 2011, Bissell signed on to co-write (with actor Greg Sestero
) about the cult film The Room
. Bissell previously wrote about the film in a piece published in Harper's Magazine
. The book will be published by Simon and Schuster and released in January 2013.
Escanaba, Michigan
Escanaba is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, located in the banana belt on the state's Upper Peninsula. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 13,140, making it the third-largest city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie...
and currently based in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
.
Life
He studied English at Michigan State UniversityMichigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
in East Lansing. In 1996, the 22-year-old went to Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
as a volunteer for the Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
. He was there for seven months before returning home. He then worked as a book editor in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and published, among other books, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates
Richard Yates (novelist)
Richard Yates was an American novelist and short story writer, known for his exploration of mid-20th century life.-Life:...
and Paula Fox
Paula Fox
Paula Fox is an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. Her novel The Slave Dancer received the Newbery Medal in 1974; and in 1978, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. More recently, A Portrait of Ivan won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2008.Her...
's memoir Borrowed Finery..
He writes for Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, The New Republic, and The Virginia Quarterly Review
The Virginia Quarterly Review
The Virginia Quarterly Review is a literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman...
, where he is a contributing editor.
While much of Bissell's magazine writing could be considered travel writing, his articles are more concerned with politics, history, and autobiography than tourism.
As a journalist he traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan during wartime.
While Bissell has been critical of neo-conservatism, the Bush administration, and American unilateralism, his politics often do not fit within established categories of American liberalism and conservatism.
Much of his work is concerned with the legacy of the Soviet Union and Communism.
His book in collaboration with Jeff Alexander, "Speak, Commentary," is a collection of fake DVD commentaries for popular films by political figures and pundits such as Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza is an author and public speaker and a former Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is currently the President of The King's College in New York City. D'Souza is a noted Christian apologist and conservative writer and speaker....
and Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
. His other books have won several prizes, including the Rome Prize
Rome Prize
The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists and to 15 scholars The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists...
, the Anna Akhmatova Prize, and the Best Travel Writing Award from Peace Corps Writers. His short stories and journalism have also been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories
Best American Short Stories
The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.-Edward O'Brien:The...
, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Science Writing.
He is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
.
Bissell's father served in the Marines
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, alongside author and journalist Philip Caputo
Philip Caputo
Philip Caputo is an American author and journalist. He is best-known for A Rumor of War, a best-selling memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam War....
. The two remained friends during Bissell's childhood and Caputo read and encouraged him in his early writing efforts. He has cited Caputo as a major influence, along with Michigan writers Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison
James "Jim" Harrison is an American author known for his poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and writings about food. He has been called "a force of nature", and his work has been compared to that of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway...
and Thomas McGuane
Thomas McGuane
Thomas Francis McGuane III is an American author. His work includes ten novels, short fiction and screenplays, as well as three collections of essays devoted to his life in the outdoors.-Early life:...
.
While much of Bissell's writing is concerned with issues of international relations and literary criticism, he frequently mentions Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
, J.R.R. Tolkien, and video games as well. The video game Gears of War 2
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games with lead design by Cliff Bleszinski, and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It is the second installment of the Gears of War series. The game was officially released in North America, Europe and...
, the first version of which Bissell wrote about for The New Yorker, contains a character named Hank Bissell, an apparent nod to him. In a March 2010 Observer
Observer
Observer may refer to person who is observing. More specialised meanings follow.-Computer science and information theory:*In information theory, any system which receives information from an object....
article, he wrote about the appeal of games like Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 open world action video game published by Rockstar Games, and developed by British games developer Rockstar North. It has been released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles, and for the Windows operating system...
and his own simultaneous struggles with addiction to video games and cocaine.
In May 2011, Bissell signed on to co-write (with actor Greg Sestero
Greg Sestero
Greg Sestero is a French-American actor and model. He is best known for his role as Mark in the 2003 cult film The Room.-Personal life:...
) about the cult film The Room
The Room
The Room is Harold Pinter's first play, written and first produced in 1957. Considered by critics the earliest example of Pinter's "comedy of menace", this play has strong similarities to Pinter's second play, The Birthday Party, including features considered hallmarks of Pinter's early work and...
. Bissell previously wrote about the film in a piece published in Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
. The book will be published by Simon and Schuster and released in January 2013.
Awards
- 2010 Guggenheim Fellow
- Rome PrizeRome PrizeThe Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists and to 15 scholars The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists...
Selected publications
- Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia (2003) ISBN 978-0375421303
- Speak, Commentary: The Big Little Book of Fake Dvd Commentaries (2003) (with Jeff Alexander) ISBN 978-1932416077
- God Lives in St. Petersburg: and Other Stories (2005) ISBN 978-0375422645
- The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam (2007) ISBN 978-0375422652
- Extra Lives: Why Video Games MatterExtra Lives: Why Video Games MatterExtra Lives: Why Video Games Matter is a 2010 non-fiction book by journalist and critic Tom Bissell discussing the social relevance and importance of video games as well as defending the medium against detractors...
(2010), ISBN 978-0-307-37870-5 - Search for contributions to The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
- "The Grammar of Fun: CliffyB and the world of the video game", The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, "Annals of Technology", 2008-11-03