Edward J Delaney
Author, Journalist, Filmmaker, Editor
Bio
Edward J. Delaney's books include the novels Broken Irish, Warp & Weft, Follow the Sun, and The Acrobat, as well as the short-story collections The Drowning and Other Stories and The Big Impossible: Novellas+Stories.
He was a 2008 National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellow, winner of the 2005 PEN/Winship Award for Fiction, a National Magazine Award finalist, and a past recipient of an O. Henry Prize for short story writing.
His work has appeared regularly in The Atlantic and other magazines, and has appeared in Best American Short Stories. He is also the co-author of Born to Play, by Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia.
Delaney is a faculty member at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, where he edits the literary journal Mount Hope.
Photo by Beowulf Sheehan
In the
Press
(In The Acrobat),“Imagination meets biography in this novel about Cary Grant… Grant’s life is not the happily-ever-after film where hero and heroine kiss as the credits roll. Instead he is alone and frightened, desperate to be seen, to be heard, to be loved.... A beautifully imagined, sympathetic portrait of a flawed icon.
“(The Acrobat is a) splendid fictional biography of Cary Grant, charting the film star’s path toward an ‘endless conundrum of fame.’… Delaney vividly captures the intoxicating and toxic fumes of Hollywood, where ‘egos go to be crushed,’ and presents an alluring amalgam of fact and fiction. Breezy and entertaining, Delaney’s portrait perfectly befits the glamour and fakery of his subject.”
(In The Acrobat),Delaney writes simply and beautifully about Grant... crafting a character who is basically characterless...he's sensitive to how masks change, and how hard they are to remove.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
KIRKUS REVIEWS
starred review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
starred review
(Broken Irish) focuses on relatable, human drama that makes the novel and its characters truly indelible… a satisfying novel steeped in verisimilitude
THE BOSTON GLOBE
(In The Big Impossible), his stories are so finely crafted that he’s able to convince you not only that he’s been there and seen these things, but that you have as well.
WBUR
In Follow The Sun, Delaney tells multiple moving stories in his third character-driven novel, each intricately woven into the fabric of the others. . . . [His] portrayal of his characters' struggles to survive their troubled pasts is heartbreakingly realistic and honest, making the suspense and its eventual resolution all the more meaningful.
BOOKLIST
Other Work
Library of the Early Mind
(documentary film, 2010)
Born To Play
by Dustin Pedroia with Edward J. Delaney
(nonfiction, 2009)
The Times Were Never So Bad
(documentary film, 2008)
The Atlantic
(contributor)
Hear "The Drowning" on
NPR's "Selected Shorts"
Mount Hope
(editor)
Contact
I'm at ejdelaney@hotmail.com