Jay Neugeboren

Jay Neugeboren (born Jacob Mordecai Neugeboren; May 30, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York, United States) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer.

Education

Jay Neugeboren was born In Brooklyn, New York and raised in Flatbush. He went to Public School Number 246, Walt Whitman Junior High School (where he was its first president), and Erasmus Hall High School. He received a B. A., Phi Beta Kappa, from Columbia University, and a Master of Arts from Indiana University, where he was a University Fellow.

Career

He is the author of 24 books. He has won numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

He has taught at Columbia University, Indiana University, Stanford University, the State University of New York at Old Westbury, the University of Freiburg (Germany), and was for many years (1971-2001) Professor and writer in residence at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Awards

His novella, “Corky’s Brother,” won the Transatlantic Review Novella Award (1969). He has had stories in more than 50 anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, and Penguin Modern Stories.

He has won prizes for his fiction (The Stolen Jew: American Jewish Committee Award for Best Novel of the Year, 1981; Before My Life Began: Edward Lewis Wallant Memorial Prize for Best Novel of the Year, 1985), and non-fiction (Imagining Robert: New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Transforming Madness: National Alliance on Mental Illness, “Ken” Award). He is the only writer to have won six consecutive P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Awards.

His screenplay for The Hollow Boy (American Playhouse, PBS, 1991, was chosen best screenplay of the year by the Los Angeles Times and at the Houston Film Festival.

Personal life

He has been married three times, and has three children.