08 Jul Calvin Trillin
Speaker: Calvin Trillin
Acclaimed columnist and writer
Speech Topics Include:
- A Conversation with Calvin Trillin
Calvin Trillin is one of America’s most celebrated authors, humorists, and journalists, acclaimed across remarkably diverse fields of writing over a career spanning more than six decades. A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, he has been called perhaps the finest reporter in America and a classic American humorist in equal measure.
Six Decades of Unforgettable American Writing
Trillin graduated from Yale in 1957, joined Time magazine, and became a staff writer for The New Yorker in 1963. From 1967 to 1982, he produced the legendary U.S. Journal series, filing 3,000-word pieces every three weeks from locations across America on subjects ranging from small-town mysteries to the history of Louisiana restaurants. He wrote the Uncivil Liberties column, which USA Today called the funniest regular column in journalism. His books span reported nonfiction, comic novels, short stories, food writing, and verse, and he has been a regular guest on late-night television.
Wit, Wisdom, and Distinctly American Storytelling
Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Trillin has never lost the unadorned, deeply rooted Midwestern perspective that makes his writing and speaking so distinctive. He has written and presented two critically acclaimed one-man shows in New York, with The New York Times calling him the Buster Keaton of performance humorists. His speaking engagements bring the same wit, intelligence, and storytelling mastery that have made him a national treasure for audiences seeking humor and insight rooted in the American experience.
Speaker Calvin Trillin, author of the weekly column, “Uncivil Liberties” has been acclaimed in fields of writing that are remarkably diverse.
As someone who has published solidly reported pieces in The New Yorker for more than 25 years, he has been called “perhaps the finest reporter in America.” His antic commentary on the American scene and his books chronicling his adventures as a “happy eater” have earned him renown as “a classic American humorist.”
In whatever sort of writing he does, Trillin has an unadorned point of view that is deeply rooted in a Midwestern upbringing. He was born and raised in Kansas City, Mo., and he has never stopped writing about his hometown.
He graduated from Yale in 1957, did a hitch in the army, and then joined Time magazine. After a year covering the South from the Atlanta bureau, he became a writer for Time in New York.
In 1963 he became a staff writer for The New Yorker. From 1967 to 1982, he produced a highly praised series of articles for The New Yorker called “U.S. Journal”–3,000 word pieces every three weeks from somewhere in the United States, on subjects that ranged from the murder of a farmer’s wife in Iowa to the author’s effort to write the definitive history of a Louisiana restaurant called Didee’s “or to eat an awful lot of baked duck and dirty rice trying.” Some of the murder stories from that series were published in 1984 as Killings; another collection of Trillin’s reporting for The New Yorker, American stories was published in October 1991.
From 1978 through 1985, Trillin was a columnist for The Nation, writing what USA Today called “simply the funniest regular column in journalism.” Since 1986, the column has been syndicated to newspapers by King Features. It has been collected in four books: Uncivil Liberties, With All Disrespect, If You Can’t Say Something Nice, and, in 1990, Enough’s Enough (And Other Rules of Life).
Trillin’s work has also included two comic novels, a collection of short stories, and, most recently, a weekly offering of comic verse for The Nation.
He travels widely as a speaker, and since 1978 has been a regular guest on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He has written and presented two one man shows at the American Place Theater in New York–both of them critically acclaimed and both sell outs. In reviewing the latest one, Words, No Music, in the fall of 1990, New York Times theater critic Mel Gussow called Trillin “the Buster Keaton of performance humorists.”
Speaker Calvin Trillin does most of his writing from his New York City brownstone, where he lives with his wife, Alice. The couple has two daughters.
A Conversation with Calvin Trillin
