E.L. Doctorow Biography

Fast Facts

• Two-time winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for "Billy Bathgate" and "The March․"
• Won the National Book Critics Circle Award three times, for "Ragtime," "Billy Bathgate" and "The March․"
• Graduated from Kenyon College in Ohio, where he studied with poet and critic John Crowe Ransom, and also attended a graduate program in drama at Columbia University for a year
• Worked several odd jobs, like a reservations clerk at La Guardia Airport and a script reader for CBS and Columbia Pictures, before publishing his first novel, "Welcome to Hard Times," in 1960
• Quote: "[on his writing style] "The image I like is from cartoons․ You see the artist's hand drawing a little mouse․ It colors in the jacket and the pants, and then it gives him a little goose, and the mouse scoots away ․․․ Well, the hand is drawn, too․""
• Quote: "[on his childhood] "I was a beneficiary of the incredible energies of European émigrés in every field - all those great minds hounded out of Europe by Hitler․ They brought enormous sophistication ․․․ I was very lucky to be a New Yorker․""
• In addition to his writing, he also worked in the publishing industry, starting as an editor for New American Library in the late 1950s and later becoming publisher and editor-in-chief of Dial Press
• Best known as a highly-regarded historical fiction author who wrote "Ragtime," "Billy Bathgate" and "The March․"
• Had a small role in the 1976 Robert Altman film "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" as an adviser to President Grover Cleveland
• Was named after Edgar Allan Poe, one his father's favorite writers