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Audrey Niffenegger

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Audrey Niffenegger
Niffenegger in 2009
Niffenegger in 2009
Born(1963-06-13)June 13, 1963(age 61)
South Haven, Michigan,U.S.
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • artist
  • academic
EducationArt Institute of Chicago
Northwestern University(MFA)
Period2003–present
GenreFiction
Notable awardsInkpot Award(2019)[1]
SpouseEddie Campbell
Audrey Niffenegger's voice
Recorded July 2013from the BBC Radio 4 programBookclub
Website
audreyniffenegger.com

Audrey Niffenegger(born June 13, 1963) is an American writer, artist, and academic. Her debut novel,The Time Traveler's Wife,published in 2003, was a bestseller.

Biography[edit]

Audrey Niffenegger was born in 1963 inSouth Haven, Michigan.At the age of two,[2]she and her family moved toEvanston, Illinois,and she has since spent the majority of her life living in or close to Chicago.[3]Niffenegger started writing books when she was six years old. Niffenegger completed her undergraduate degree at theArt Institute of Chicagowhere she worked on becoming a visual artist.[3]After completing her undergraduate degree, she got her M.F.A atNorthwestern University.[4]Niffenegger is currently a professor in the Department of Creative Writing atColumbia College Chicago,where she co-founded the Columbia College Chicago Center for the Book and Paper Arts.[5]

Niffenegger is also the founding member of T3 orText 3,an artist and writer's group which performs and exhibits in Chicago. She is an alumna and board member of theRagdale Foundation.She started making books herself by using processes such as intaglio and letterpress. She also wrote many novels which were produced on an offset press.[6]

She founded Artists Book House.[7]In 2024, Niffenegger announced that the center's home would be built in the Old Irving Park neighborhood.[8]

Novels[edit]

Niffenegger'sdebut novel,The Time Traveler's Wife,was published in 2003 and was a bestseller.[9]Afilm adaptationwas released in 2009. Niffenegger has no intention of watching the movie because she stated that the characters are only truly hers in the book, not in the movie.[10]Niffenegger originally conceptualizedThe Time Traveler's Wifeas a graphic novel but realized that the time travel would be difficult to capture in visualizations.[11]In March 2009, Niffenegger sold her second novel, a literary ghost story calledHer Fearful Symmetry,toCharles Scribner's Sonsfor an advance of $5 million.[12]The book was released on October 1, 2009[13]and is set in London'sHighgate Cemeterywhere, during research for the book, Niffenegger acted as a tour guide.[14]Though not as huge a commercial juggernaut asThe Time Traveler's Wife,this book generally garnered more positive critical reviews and cinched Niffenegger's reputation as a leading novelist of ideas and atmosphere.[15]

Niffenegger collaborated with Wayne McGregor on a balletic fable,Raven Girl(2013), performed at the Royal Opera House in London in 2013, 2015.[16]

In 2009, she started working on a novel calledThe Chinchilla Girl in Exile.[17]

In 2013, it was announced that there would be a sequel toThe Time Traveler's Wife[18]and in 2022 it was announced that title isThe Other Husbandset to be released in 2023.[18][19][20]

Visual books[edit]

Niffenegger has degrees from theArt Institute of ChicagoandNorthwestern University.[5]As an undergraduate student at the Art Institute of Chicago, Niffenegger created her own book arts major combining etching, letterpress arts and bookbinding.[4]Her first project was calledThe Adventuress,which she self-described as "a novel in pictures". Niffenegger's second novel in pictures was titledThe Three Incestuous Sisterswhich she created while completing her M.F.A. at Northwestern.[5]These two novels in pictures were subsequently published by Harry N.Abrams.The Three Incestuous Sisterswas published in 2005 and tells the story of three unusual sisters who live in a seaside house; the book has been compared to the work ofEdward Gorey.The Adventuresswas released on September 1, 2006.

The 2004 short story "The Night Bookmobile" was serialized in 2008 in "Visual Novel" format inThe Guardian.[21]"The Night Bookmobile" was published on October 1, 2010, by Jonathan Cape. Niffenegger intends "The Night Bookmobile" to be the first installment in a series titled "The Library". She is working on the second installment, called "Moths of the New World", about a stolen book.[22]

Personal life[edit]

Niffenegger is married to cartoonistEddie Campbell.Niffenegger and Campbell collaborated on the visual novelBizarre Romanceto celebrate the Comics Unmasked exhibit at the British Library.[23]Niffenegger describes herself as "somewhere in the spectrum ofagnosticismandatheism"and ascribes her disbelief to herCatholicbackground.[24]

Bibliography[edit]

Novels[edit]

Short stories[edit]

  • "Jakob Wywialowski and the Angels" (2004)
  • "Prudence: The Cautionary Tale of a Picky Eater" in the bookPoisonous Plants at Table(2006)

Comics[edit]

Artist's books[edit]

Visual books:

  • The Adventuress(1985)[5]
  • The Spinster(1986)
  • Aberrant Abecedarium(1986)
  • The Murderer[28]
  • Spring(1994)[28]
  • The Three Incestuous Sisters(2005)[5]

Non-fiction[edit]

Anthologies[edit]

  • Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories(Scribner, 2015).ISBN9781501111198.An anthology selected and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger. She also wrote the introduction.

Books Foreworded by Niffenegger[edit]

  • The Art of Neil Gaiman(with Hayley Campbell, Neil Gaiman)
  • Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover( Paul Buckley)
  • Mr. Wrong: Real-Life Stories about the Men We Used to Love(Jacquelyn Mitchard, Harriet Brown, et al.)

Adaptations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^"Inkpot Award".Comic-Con International: San Diego.December 6, 2012.RetrievedApril 9,2023.
  2. ^Bayne, Martha (September 25, 2003)."Things Are Going Very Well for Audrey Niffenegger".
  3. ^ab"Audrey Niffenegger | Penguin Random House".PenguinRandomhouse.com.RetrievedMarch 28,2019.
  4. ^abWatson, Sasha (August 9, 2010)."Prose to Graphic Novel: Audrey Niffenegger & Diane Gabaldon Make the Leap".Publishers Weekly.257(32): 27.ProQuest745196706.
  5. ^abcde"Prose to Graphic Novel: Audrey Niffenegger & Diana Gabaldon Make the Leap".PublishersWeekly.com.RetrievedMarch 8,2019.
  6. ^Wassserman, Krystyna (2011).The Book as Art; Artists's Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts.New York: Princeton Architectural Press. p. 12.ISBN978-1-56898-992-1.
  7. ^"Our Mission".Artists Book House.RetrievedJuly 6,2024.
  8. ^"Audrey Niffenegger Announces New Location and Plans for Artists Book House".Chicago Gallery News.July 3, 2024.RetrievedJuly 6,2024.
  9. ^Niffenegger, Audrey."Ghostly".Penguin Books Ltd.
  10. ^Holt, Emily (October 13, 2009). "Ghost Writer".WWD: Women's Wear Daily.198(78). Los Angeles: 4.ProQuest231220480.
  11. ^Cavna, Michael (March 29, 2018)."How a Best Selling Wife and Husband Enchant Readers in the Anthology Bizarre Romance".Washington Post.
  12. ^Rich, Motoko(March 11, 2009)."Audrey Niffenegger Receives $5 Million Advance for Second Novel".The New York Times.pp. C2.RetrievedJuly 9,2013.Six years after the publication of her best-selling novel,The Time Traveler's Wife,Audrey Niffenegger sold a new manuscript for almost $5 million, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. It is an especially significant sum at a time of retrenchment and economic uncertainty in the publishing world. After a fiercely contested auction, Scribner, a unit of Simon & Schuster, bought the rights to publish the new novel,Her Fearful Symmetry,in the United States this fall.
  13. ^Allfree, Claire (October 1, 2009)."Niffenegger goes on a timely journey".Metro.RetrievedOctober 3,2009.
  14. ^Niffenegger, Audrey (October 3, 2009)."Audrey Niffenegger on Highgate Cemetery".The Guardian.London.RetrievedOctober 3,2009.
  15. ^Cokal, Susann (September 25, 2009)."Book Review | 'Her Fearful Symmetry,' by Audrey Niffenegger".The New York Times.
  16. ^"Raven Girl — Productions — Royal Opera House".Archived fromthe originalon September 5, 2015.RetrievedOctober 7,2015.
  17. ^Audrey Niffenegger."Official Website FAQs".Archived fromthe originalon May 7, 2013.Retrieved29 March2015.What are you writing now?I have started to work on a novel called TheChinchilla Girl in Exile.It is about a nine-year-old girl named Lizzie Varo who has hypertrichosis (she is covered with hair) and her desire to go to school (she's been home-schooled by her clever and amusing Aunt Mariella) and what happens when she does go to school (things get weird).
  18. ^abMolly Driscoll (September 24, 2013)."The Time Traveler's Wife Gets a Sequel".The Christian Science Monitor.Archivedfrom the original on August 28, 2016.RetrievedSeptember 24,2013.
  19. ^"Audrey Niffenegger".
  20. ^"Author Stands Behind HBO's Controversial Adaptation of 'The Time Traveler's Wife'".Forbes.
  21. ^"The Night Bookmobile | Books".The Guardian.London. July 21, 2008.RetrievedJuly 9,2013.
  22. ^"Bookslut | An Interview with Audrey Niffenegger".www.bookslut.com.Archived fromthe originalon April 13, 2019.RetrievedMarch 8,2019.
  23. ^"Bizarre Romance".Mr. Death's Ephemeral Pageant.RetrievedMarch 28,2019.
  24. ^Soriano, César G. (October 5, 2009)."Niffenegger finds 'Symmetry' in death for second novel".USA Today.RetrievedOctober 7,2009.
  25. ^@AANiffenegger (June 1, 2022)."In the sequel, The Other Husband, there are a few additional visits/conversations. (It will be published next year.)"(Tweet) – viaTwitter.
  26. ^Niffenegger, Audrey (August 4, 2008)."31.05.2008: The Night Bookmobile".The Guardian.London.
  27. ^Niffenegger, Audrey (April 29, 2014)."Novelists do comics: Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell".The Guardian.ISSN0261-3077.RetrievedMarch 8,2019.
  28. ^ab"Audrey Niffenegger author biography".BookBrowse.com.RetrievedApril 9,2023.

External links[edit]

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