Jill Ciment

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Jill Ciment
Born (1955-05-20) May 20, 1955 (age 68)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
OccupationMemoirist, novelist, and professor
NationalityAmerican

Jill Ciment (born March 19, 1953) is an American writer.

Biography[edit]

Ciment was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She studied art at the California Institute of Arts (CalArts), under John Baldessari.[1] She earned her BFA from CalArts in 1975.[2] She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine in 1981.[3]

Ciment is a professor of English at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Her novel, Heroic Measures was one of titles chosen by Oprah Winfrey's Book Club for 2009 summer reading.[4] This book was also one of the top five finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for 2010.[5] 5 Flights Up, a film adaptation of Heroic Measures starring Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton, was released in the U.S. on May 8, 2015.

She married artist Arnold Mesches when she was 17 and they were married until his death in 2016. Her memoir, Half a Life, reflected on their relationship, and following his death and in context of the Me Too movement she is re-examining this work in a new memoir, The Other Half.[6]

Grants and literary awards[edit]

  • Two New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (1996 and 2002)[7]
  • National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (2005)[8]
  • Guggenheim Foundation grant (2006)[9]
  • The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize (2005)[10]
  • NEA Japan Fellowship Prize

Works[edit]

Novels[edit]

  • The Law of Falling Bodies, Poseidon, 1993[11]
  • Teeth of the Dog, Crown, 1998[12]
  • The Tattoo Artist, Pantheon, 2005[13]
  • Heroic Measures, Pantheon, 2009[14]
  • Act of God, Pantheon, 2015[15]
  • The Hand That Feeds You, (with Amy Hempel) writing as A.J. Rich, Scribner, 2015[16]
  • The Body in Question, Pantheon, 2019[17]

Short stories[edit]

Collections:

  • Small Claims, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986, collection of 4 (or more) short stories:
    "Self-Portrait with Vanishing Point", "Genetics", "Astronomy", "Money" (novella)

Non-fiction[edit]

  • Half a Life, Crown, 1996 (memoir)[18]

Adaptations[edit]

  • Astronomy (1998), short directed by Susan Rogers, based on short story "Astronomy"
  • 5 Flights Up (2014), film directed by Richard Loncraine, based on novel Heroic Measures

References[edit]

  1. ^ "ARNOLD MESCHES and JILL CIMENT with Robert Storr and Phong Bui". Brooklynrail.org. 4 March 2010. Archived from the original on 31 October 2014. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  2. ^ "Noted Novelist Brings Remarkable Personal Story To Davidson Classroom". Davidson.edu. Archived from the original on 24 February 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  3. ^ "Jill Ciment : Professor". English.ufl.edu. Archived from the original on 20 October 2015. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  4. ^ "Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment". Oprah.com. Archived from the original on 22 June 2009. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  5. ^ "2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Winners". Events.latimes.com. Archived from the original on 11 November 2014. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  6. ^ "Revision Quest". This American Life. 2019-12-07. Archived from the original on 2020-01-02. Retrieved 2020-01-02.
  7. ^ "Directory of Artists' Fellows, 1985-2013" (PDF). www.nyfa.org. New York Foundation for the Arts. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 13, 2014. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  8. ^ "Half a life is a long phone call from a friend (Review)", The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA), 1996 Quote from source: She has ... received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and others.
  9. ^ "Jill Ciment". www.gf.org. 2006. Archived from the original on January 4, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  10. ^ "Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize—Past Recipients". www.rochester.edu. 2005. Archived from the original on December 22, 2016. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  11. ^ Ciment, Jill (1993). The law of falling bodies. New York: Poseidon Press. ISBN 0-671-79451-5. OCLC 26588628.
  12. ^ Ciment, Jill (1999). Teeth of the dog : a novel (1st ed.). New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-70202-9. OCLC 39180866.
  13. ^ Ciment, Jill (2005). The tattoo artist (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-42325-7. OCLC 57283791.
  14. ^ Ciment, Jill (2015). Heroic measures. London. ISBN 978-1-78227-194-9. OCLC 938790734.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  15. ^ Ciment, Jill (2015). Act of God. New York. ISBN 978-0-307-91170-4. OCLC 881406944.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  16. ^ Rich, A. J. (7 July 2015). The hand that feeds you. New York. ISBN 978-1-4767-7458-9. OCLC 900158232.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. ^ Ciment, Jill (2019). The body in question : a novel (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-1-5247-4798-5. OCLC 1049577535.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ^ Ciment, Jill (1997). Half a life (1st Anchor Books ed.). New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 0-385-48891-2. OCLC 36501398.

External links[edit]