Early Career
His early literary influences ranged from writers like Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor, and Philip Roth to film directors like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, and Werner Herzog. He studied at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and won the Paul Horgan prize for best short fiction by a student. He started in journalism as an assistant to writer Pete Hamill before reporting for the Newark Star-Ledger in New Jersey and the Norwich Bulletin in Connecticut. He reported on crime for New York magazine but found inspiration for his first novel at the New York Department of Probation saying that it was a "virtual social microcosm."
Read more about this topic: Peter Blauner
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“When first we faced, and touching showed
How well we knew the early moves ...”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)