Quick Facts
Biography
James Hynes (born August 23, 1955) is an American novelist. He was born in Okemos, Michigan, and grew up in Big Rapids, Michigan. He lived for many years in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and currently resides in Austin, Texas, where he has taught creative writing at the University of Texas. He has also taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the University of Michigan, Miami University, and Grinnell College. Hynes received a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Michigan and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.
His first novel, The Wild Colonial Boy, deals with terrorism in Northern Ireland, but Hynes is best known for his three subsequent books, Publish and Perish, The Lecturer's Tale, and Kings of Infinite Space, which combine satire and horror. His most recent novel, Next, was published in 2010. His reviews and literary essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Boston Review, and the online magazine Salon.com. In the 1980s he wrote about television for the Michigan Voice, Mother Jones, and In These Times.
Works
- The Wild Colonial Boy (Atheneum, 1990)
- Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror (Picador USA, 1997)
- The Lecturer's Tale (Picador USA, 2001)
- Kings of Infinite Space (St. Martin's Press, 2004)
- Next (Little, Brown and Company, 2010)