He was also a 2004 finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction. His work has appeared in the literary publications Shenandoah, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, Stories from the Blue Moon Café, and Quarterly West.
According to author William Gay, “Pizzolatto’s powerful fiction hearkens back to the golden age of short stories when O’Connor and the rest were working. He possesses an apparently unlimited imagination and the narrative skills to bring it to bear.”
Pizzolatto was born in New Orleans and raised on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. He began college as a visual artist, then switched to writing and literature while still an undergraduate at Louisiana State University.
“People always told me my drawings told stories, held narratives, so the shift to writing seemed natural,” he says. “My art and my writing deal with similar themes: memory and solitude. I’m fascinated by how memory influences life and how we corrupt it with what we want, how we live with our own desires.”
After receiving his bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy, he spent most of his time as a bartender and technical writer in Austin, Texas.
In 2003, he received a fellowship for poetry and another for fiction from the University of Arkansas where he recently graduated with a master of fine arts degree. While there, the first two stories he submitted for publication were accepted by “The Atlantic Monthly.”
“Nic’s a remarkable talent. I don’t know of another person who’s had two stories accepted in a single package,” said a spokesperson for the university. “His stories are forcefully written and deeply imagined.”
The first story, “Ghost Birds,” centers around an adrenaline-addicted park ranger, whose extreme pursuits are interrupted by the arrival of a female college student, researching urban legends.
The second story, “Between Here and the Yellow Sea,” concerns a car trip undertaken by a young man and his former football coach. The two embark on a quixotic quest to kidnap the coach’s daughter, who has become an adult film star in Los Angeles. According to Pizzolatto, the journey is used to drift back and forth through time as the young man comes to terms with recent revelations about his past and with the life he’s made for himself.
Pizzolatto is the 2005-2006 Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During his residency in the English Department, he will give a public reading and teach classes. “We chose Nic from a large national pool of very talented writers — an exceptional competition. One of the search committee members described Pizzolatto’s writing as ‘smart and accessible and difficult to put down,’” said Bland Simpson, associate professor of English and director of the creative writing program at UNC. “One need only to read his story, ‘Between Here and the Yellow Sea,’ to experience his prodigious talent as a truly confident storyteller.”
To reserve an autographed copy of Pizzolatto’s book or for information, call The Country Bookshop at 692-3211.
