Literary Career
Burns is an author who has written nine books, two of which won the highest award given by the American Library Association for volumes published by a university press. Named as the "Best of the Best" were The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol, and its companion-piece, The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco. Burns is the only non-academic ever to have won the award twice.
Those two books, and his biggest-seller, Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism, which was a selection of both the Book of the Month Club and the History Book Club, are among five of Burns's book to have been "adopted" by various college curricula for courses in journalism, American history, and American Studies. Infamous Scribblers is considered the definitive work on journalism during the colonial era.
Burns has also written for a number of magazines, including Reader's Digest, The Weekly Standard, Family Circle, Spy, and the pre-Rupert Murdoch version of TV Guide. In addition, he has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Post, and The Huffington Post, among other print outlets.
Burns is also a playwright. His first play, Mid-Strut, won the Eudora Welty Emerging Playwrights Award in 2010. The play's world premiere was February 2012 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse.
Read more about this topic: Eric Burns
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