Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe.
64-567: Ford's first collection of short stories, Rock Springs , was published in 1987. In the United States, Ford received the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for his novel Independence Day . In Spain, he won the Princess of Asturias Award for 2016. In 2018, Ford received the Park Kyong-ni Prize , an international literary award from South Korea. His novel Wildlife was adapted into a 2018 film of
128-680: A "master" of the short story genre. Ford lived for many years in New Orleans in the French Quarter , on lower Bourbon Street then in the Garden District of the same city, where his wife, Kristina, was the executive director of the city planning commission. For a while Ford and his wife resided in East Boothbay, Maine . As of 2023, Ford lives in Billings, Montana where he bought a house. During
192-409: A $ 3.75 million quarterly licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group. Two weeks later, on January 19, Authentic Brands Group terminated its licensing agreement. As a result, The Arena Group fought back by announcing that it would lay off the entire Sports Illustrated staff. In March 2024, Authentic Brands Group licensed the publishing rights to Minute Media in a 10-year deal, jointly announcing that
256-541: A failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an emotional crisis after the death of his son. It was named one of Time magazine's five best books of 1986 and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction . Ford followed up that success with Rock Springs (1987), a story collection —set mostly in Montana —that includes what remain some of his most anthologized short stories. Ford's 1990 novel Wildlife ,
320-577: A long list of writers during the 1970s and 1980s, including Tobias Wolff , Ann Beattie , Frederick Barthelme , Larry Brown , Jayne Anne Phillips , and Gordon Lish . However, many of the characters in the novels about Frank Bascombe ( The Sportswriter , Independence Day , The Lay of the Land , Let Me Be Frank With You , Be Mine ), including the protagonist, enjoy degrees of material affluence and cultural capital not normally associated with dirty realism. Ford's writing demonstrates "a meticulous concern for
384-533: A mile, the first-ever time a mile had been run under four minutes. Both men and women have won the award, originally called "Sportsman of the Year" and renamed "Sportswoman of the Year" or "Sportswomen of the Year" when applicable; it is currently known as "Sportsperson of the Year." The 2017 winners of the award are Houston Texans defensive end J. J. Watt and Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve . Both athletes were recognized for their efforts in helping rebuild
448-652: A party two years after Whitehead published a negative review of A Multitude of Sins in The New York Times . Thirteen years later, Ford remained unrepentant. Writing in Esquire in 2017, Ford declared that "as of today, I don't feel any different about Mr. Whitehead, or his review, or my response." Rock Springs (short stories) Rock Springs is the first collection of short stories by author Richard Ford , published in 1987. As with his earlier novels A Piece of My Heart (1976) and The Ultimate Good Luck (1981),
512-517: A railroad. At the age of 19, before deciding to attend college, Ford began work on the Missouri Pacific train line as a locomotive engineer's assistant, learning the work while doing the job. Ford received a B.A. degree from Michigan State University . Having enrolled to study hotel management, he switched to English. After graduating, he taught junior high school in Flint, Michigan , and enlisted in
576-671: A sequel to The Sportswriter , featuring the continued story of its protagonist, Frank Bascombe. Reviews were positive, and the novel became the first to win both the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction . During the same year, Ford was chosen as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story , for outstanding achievement for that genre. He ended the 1990s with a well-received collection of short stories, Women With Men , published during 1997. The Paris Review termed him
640-499: A similar partnership with Morning Read for golf coverage, with its website being merged into that of Sports Illustrated . It also partnered with iHeartMedia to distribute and co-produce podcasts . In September 2021, Maven, now known as The Arena Group, acquired the New Jersey–based sports news website The Spun , which would integrate into Sports Illustrated . In 2022, ABG announced several non-editorial ventures involving
704-518: A story of a Montana golf professional turned firefighter, met with mixed reviews and middling sales, but by the end of the 1990s Ford was increasingly sought after as an editor and contributor to various projects. Ford edited the 1990 The Best American Short Stories , the 1992 Granta Book of the American Short Story , the Fall 1996 "fiction issue" of Ploughshares , and the 1998 Granta Book of
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#1732901929441768-457: A weekly magazine, especially during the winter. A number of advisers to Luce, including Life magazine's Ernest Havemann, tried to kill the idea, but Luce, who was not a sports fan, decided the time was right. Luce and editors of the planned magazine met in 1954 at Pine Lakes Country Club , the oldest golf course in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina . The course's pro shop has a plaque mentioning
832-527: Is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel , it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. It is also known for its annual swimsuit issue , which has been published since 1964, and has spawned other complementary media works and products. Owned until 2018 by Time Inc. , it
896-401: Is also credited with the conception and creation of the annual Swimsuit Issue , which quickly became, and remains, the most popular issue each year. In 1986, co-owned property HBO/Cannon Video had inked a pact to produce video versions of the magazine for $ 20 on the sell-through market, running just 30–45 minutes on the tape. In 1990, Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications to form
960-407: Is just this personal, vital, idiomatic presence that both mirrors and critiques our habits of language.” A decade later, The Paris Review —profiling Ford for its iconic interview series— acknowledged that: “His single volume of stories has established him as a master of the genre.” In her 2012 New Yorker piece profiling Ford and his recently published novel Canada , Lorrie Moore recognized
1024-616: The Sports Illustrated brand, including an apparel line for JCPenney "inspired by iconic moments in sports" (it was not the brand's first foray into clothing, as it launched a branded swimsuit line in conjunction with its Swimsuit Issue in 2018), and resort hotels in Orlando and Punta Cana . In September 2023, it delved deeper into the resort world through a new partnership with Travel + Leisure . On November 27, 2023, Futurism published an article alleging that Sports Illustrated
1088-512: The United States Marine Corps but was discharged after contracting hepatitis . At university he met Kristina Hensley, his future wife and they married in 1968. Despite mild dyslexia , Ford developed a serious interest in literature . He has stated in interviews that his dyslexia may have helped him as a reader since it forced him to read books slowly and thoughtfully. Ford briefly attended law school but quit and participated with
1152-650: The University of Colorado Boulder . In 1999, Sports Illustrated named Muhammad Ali the Sportsman of the Century at the Sports Illustrated ' s 20th Century Sports Awards in New York City 's Madison Square Garden . In 2015, the magazine renamed its Sportsman Legacy Award to the Sports Illustrated' s Muhammad Ali Legacy Award. The annual award was originally created in 2008 and honors former "sports figures who embody
1216-515: The "bonus piece". These well-written, in-depth articles helped to distinguish Sports Illustrated from other sports publications, and helped launch the careers of such legendary writers as Frank Deford , who in March 2010 wrote of Laguerre, "He smoked cigars and drank Scotch and made the sun move across the heavens ... His genius as an editor was that he made you want to please him, but he wanted you to do that by writing in your own distinct way." Laguerre
1280-439: The 1940s, these magazines were monthly, which prevented them from cover current events. There was no large-base, general, weekly sports magazine with a national following on actual active events. It was then that Time patriarch Henry Luce began considering whether his company should attempt to fill that gap. At the time, many believed sports was beneath the attention of serious journalism and did not think sports news could fill
1344-510: The 1980s, which corresponded with an American renaissance in the short story that centered around Raymond Carver (1938–1988). So there was a tendency early on to associate Ford's stories in Rock Springs with minimalism and its offshoot, an aesthetic style known as Dirty realism that referred to Carver's lower-middle-class subjects or the protagonists Ford portrays in Rock Springs . "Dirty realism" and "minimalism" came to be associated with
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#17329019294411408-515: The American Long Story . In the latter volume's "Introduction," Ford stipulated that he preferred the designation "long story" instead of the term "novella." For the publishing project Library of America , Ford edited a two-volume edition of the selected works of the Mississippi writer Eudora Welty , which was published during 1998. During 1995, Ford published the novel Independence Day ,
1472-660: The Time-Life news bureaux in Paris and London (for a time he ran both simultaneously), Laguerre attracted Henry Luce's attention in 1956 with his singular coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo , Italy, which became the core of SI' s coverage of those games. In May 1956, Luce brought Laguerre to New York to become the assistant managing editor of the magazine. He was named managing editor in 1960, and he more than doubled
1536-482: The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy , insightfully portraying a society in decline." As in the preceding decade, Ford continued to assist with various editing projects. During 2007, he edited the New Granta Book of the American Short Story and in 2011 he edited Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work . During May 2017, Ford published a memoir, Between Them: Remembering My Parents . In 2018, Wildlife
1600-429: The circulation by instituting a system of departmental editors, redesigning the internal format, and inaugurating the unprecedented use in a news magazine of full-color photographic coverage of the week's sports events. He was also one of the first to sense the rise of national interest in professional football . Laguerre also instituted the innovative concept of one long story at the end of every issue, which he called
1664-517: The city of Houston following Hurricane Harvey in addition to Altuve being a part of the Astros team that won the franchise's first World Series in 2017. The 2018 winners are the Golden State Warriors as a team for winning their third NBA Title in four years. The 2021 winner is Tom Brady for his Super Bowl 55 win. The 2023 winner is Deion Sanders for his coaching of the football team at
1728-409: The company's license. Arena, in turn, laid off the publication's editorial staff. In March 2024, ABG licensed the publishing rights to Minute Media in a 10-year deal, jointly announcing that the print and digital editions would be revived by rehiring some of the editorial staff. In May 2024, Sports Illustrated failed to deliver a print copy of the publication for the month to its subscribers for
1792-473: The continued influence of Ford's first story collection some 25 years after it was published: ”Ford has long made dissection of a certain unsavoriness part of his skill as a writer—he can parse spoiled masculinity like the finest of feminists—most famously in the widely anthologized short stories “Rock Springs” and “Communist.” A boy’s experience of adult carelessness has often been his subject.” In an interview from 2015, Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro
1856-400: The creative writing program at the University of California, Irvine , to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree, which he received in 1970. Ford chose this course simply because "they admitted me. I remember getting the application for Iowa and thinking they'd never have let me in. I'm sure I was right about that too. But typical of me, I didn't know who was teaching at Irvine. I didn't know it
1920-581: The current magazine was launched on August 9, 1954. In 1936, Stuart Scheftel created Sports Illustrated with a target market of sportsmen. He published the magazine monthly from 1936 to 1942. The magazine focused on golf, tennis, and skiing with articles on the major sports. He then sold the name to Dell Publications, which released Sports Illustrated in 1949 and this version lasted six issues before closing. Dell's version focused on major sports (baseball, basketball, boxing) and competed on magazine racks against Sports and other monthly sports magazines. During
1984-705: The digital media company theMaven, Inc. under a 10-year contract, with Ross Levinsohn as CEO. The company had backed a bid by Junior Bridgeman to acquire SI . In preparation for the closure of the sale to ABG and Maven, The Wall Street Journal reported that there would be Sports Illustrated employee layoffs, which was confirmed after the acquisition had closed. In October 2019, editor-in-chief Chris Stone stepped down. Later that month, Sports Illustrated announced its hiring of veteran college sports writer Pat Forde . In January 2020, it announced an editorial partnership with The Hockey News , focusing on syndication of NHL-related coverage. In 2021, it announced
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2048-475: The editors to merge the best color with the latest news. By 1967, the magazine was printing 200 pages of "fast color" a year; in 1983, SI became the first American full-color newsweekly. An intense rivalry developed between photographers , particularly Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer , to get a decisive cover shot that would be on newsstands and in mailboxes only a few days later. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, during Gilbert Rogin 's term as Managing Editor,
2112-516: The feature stories of Frank Deford became the magazine's anchor. "Bonus pieces" on Pete Rozelle , Woody Hayes , Bear Bryant , Howard Cosell and others became some of the most quoted sources about these figures, and Deford established a reputation as one of the best writers of the time. After more than a decade of steady losses, the magazine's fortunes finally turned around in the 1960s when Andre Laguerre became its managing editor. A European correspondent for Time, Inc., who later became chief of
2176-562: The first all-women winning group in 1958. Maya Moore of the WNBA 's Minnesota Lynx was the inaugural winner of the award in 2017. Since 1954, Sports Illustrated has annually presented the Sportsperson of the Year award to "the athlete or team whose performance that year most embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement." Roger Bannister won the first-ever Sportsman of the Year award thanks to his record-breaking time of 3:59.4 for
2240-599: The first time in the magazine's 70-year history, according to the New York Post ’s Josh Kosman (May 17, 2024). As of November 2024, Sports Illustrated has not mailed any print issues to its subscribers for seven months (the last magazine delivered being the April 2024 issue), because its former publisher refuses to turn over the subscriber list to the new publisher, according to Sports Business Journal (May 20, 2024). There were two previous magazines named Sports Illustrated before
2304-542: The ideals of sportsmanship, leadership and philanthropy as vehicles for changing the world." Ali first appeared on the magazine's cover in 1963 and went on to be featured on numerous covers during his storied career. His widow, Lonnie Ali, is consulted when choosing a recipient. In 2017, football quarterback Colin Kaepernick was honored with the Award, which was presented by Beyoncé . In 2018, WWE professional wrestler John Cena
2368-680: The intervening years, Ford lived in other locations, usually in the United States, as he pursued a peripatetic teaching career. He obtained a teaching appointment at Bowdoin College during 2005 but kept the job for only one semester. During 2008 Ford was an adjunct professor of the Oscar Wilde Centre with the School of English at Trinity College Dublin , Ireland, teaching in the Masters programme in creative writing. Starting December 29, 2010, Ford assumed
2432-672: The job of senior fiction professor at the University of Mississippi during the autumn of 2011, replacing Barry Hannah , who died during March 2010. During the autumn of 2012, he became the Emmanuel Roman and Barrie Sardoff Roman Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Writing at the Columbia University School of the Arts . As the new century commenced, he published another story collection, A Multitude of Sins (2002), followed by
2496-471: The magazine seemed caught between two opposing views of its audience. Much of the subject matter was directed at upper-class activities such as yachting , polo and safaris , but upscale would-be advertisers were unconvinced that sports fans were a significant part of their market. In 1965, offset printing began. This allowed the color pages of the magazine to be printed overnight, not only producing crisper and brighter images, but also finally enabling
2560-408: The media conglomerate Time Warner . In 2014, Time Inc. was spun off from Time Warner. In 2018, the magazine was sold to Meredith Corporation by means of its acquisition of parent company Time Inc. . Meredith, however, planned to sell Sports Illustrated due to not aligning with its lifestyle properties. Authentic Brands Group announced its intent to acquire Sports Illustrated for $ 110 million
2624-433: The meetings, and the plaque also states that the first issue was given to the course. It is on display there. Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association executive director Tracy Conner credits the magazine with making Myrtle Beach a golf destination. Many at Time-Life scoffed at Luce's idea; in his Pulitzer Prize –winning biography, Luce and His Empire , W. A. Swanberg wrote that the company's intellectuals dubbed
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2688-479: The next year, stating that it would leverage its brand and other assets for new opportunities that "stay close to the DNA and the heritage of the brand." Upon the announcement, Meredith would enter into a licensing agreement to continue as publisher of the Sports Illustrated editorial operations for at least the next two years. In June 2019, the rights to publish the Sports Illustrated editorial operations were licensed to
2752-400: The novels The Lay Of The Land, —the third in his Bascombe series— in 2006 and Canada , published during May 2012. According to Ford, The Lay Of The Land completed his series of Bascombe novels but Canada was a stand-alone novel. In April 2013, Ford read from a new Frank Bascombe story without revealing to the audience whether it was part of a longer work. By 2014, it was confirmed that
2816-432: The nuances of language ... [and] the rhythms of phrases and sentences". He has described his sense of language as "a source of pleasure in itself—- all of its corporeal qualities, its syncopations, moods, sounds, the way things look on the page". Besides this "devotion to language" is what he terms "the fabric of affection that holds people close enough together to survive". Comparisons have been drawn between Ford's work and
2880-441: The print and digital editions would be revived by rehiring some of the editorial staff. In 1956, Sports Illustrated began presenting annual awards to fashion or clothing designers who had excelled in the field of sportswear/activewear. The first ASDAs of 1956, presented to Claire McCardell with a separate Designer of the Year award to Rudi Gernreich , were chosen following a vote of 200 American top retailers. The following year,
2944-437: The proposed magazine "Muscle", "Jockstrap", and "Sweat Socks". Launched on August 9, 1954, it was not profitable (and would not be for 12 years) and not particularly well-run at first, but Luce's timing was good. The popularity of spectator sports in the United States was about to explode, and that popularity came to be driven largely by three things: economic prosperity, television, and Sports Illustrated . The early issues of
3008-417: The report, a spokesperson for Sports Illustrated claimed that the affected articles were product reviews written without the involvement of AI by AdVon Commerce, a third-party company who they claimed used pseudonyms to "protect author privacy" and had already severed ties with; meanwhile, writers and editors at the magazine sharply criticized the alleged practices. On January 5, 2024, The Arena Group missed
3072-541: The rootlessness and nameless longing ... pervasive in a highly mobile, present-oriented society in which individuals, having lost a sense of the past, relentlessly pursue their own elusive identities in the here and now." Ford "looks to art, rather than religion, to provide consolation and redemption in a chaotic time." Ford once sent Alice Hoffman a copy of one of her books with bullet holes in it after she angered him by unfavorably reviewing The Sportswriter . In 2004, Ford spat on Colson Whitehead when encountering him at
3136-470: The same name , and in 2023 Ford published Be Mine , his fifth work of fiction chronicling the life of Frank Bascombe. Ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi , the only son of Parker Carrol and Edna Ford. Parker was a traveling salesman for Faultless Starch , a Kansas City company. Of his mother, Ford said, "Her ambition was to be, first, in love with my father and, second, to be a full-time mother." When Ford
3200-476: The stories from Ford's debut collection are notable for both their lack of sentimentality and undercurrent of menace. Raymond Carver selected Ford's short story "Communist" for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 1986 . In retrospect, Rock Springs has become known as one of Ford's “Montana books,” along with Wildlife (1990), and Canada (2012), since the setting for most of
3264-400: The stories occurs in that state. The ten stories of Rock Springs appear in this sequence: All ten of the stories were first published in magazines: On the “Acnowledgements” page Ford expresses gratitude to Gary L. Fisketjon and to L. Rust Hills for their editorial help and encouragement. Upon the publication of Rock Springs in 1987, reviews were enthusiastic and this collection
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#17329019294413328-540: The story of two unlikely drifters whose paths cross on an island in the Mississippi River , during 1976, and followed it with The Ultimate Good Luck during 1981. During the interim he briefly taught at Williams College and Princeton University . Despite good notices, the books sold little, and Ford retired from fiction writing to become a writer for the New York magazine Inside Sports . "I realized," Ford said, "there
3392-465: The story was to appear in the book Let Me Be Frank With You , published during November of that year. The latter work consists of four interconnected novellas (or "long stories"), all narrated by Frank Bascombe. Let Me Be Frank With You was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. It did not win the prize but the selection committee praised the book for its "unflinching series of narratives, set in
3456-451: The voting pool had increased to 400 fashion industry experts, including Dorothy Shaver and Stanley Marcus , when Sydney Wragge and Bill Atkinson received the awards. The Italian designer Emilio Pucci was the first non-American to receive the award in 1961. The awards were presented up until at least 1963, when Marc Bohan received the prize. Other winners include Jeanne S. Campbell , Bonnie Cashin , and Rose Marie Reid who formed
3520-411: The writings of John Updike , William Faulkner , Ernest Hemingway and Walker Percy . Ford resists such comparisons, commenting, "You can't write ... on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself." Ford's works of fiction "dramatize the breakdown of such cultural institutions as marriage, family, and community," and his "marginalized protagonists often typify
3584-499: Was adapted into a film of the same name by director Paul Dano and screenwriter Zoe Kazan . It was released to widespread critical acclaim. In 2020, Ford's short story collection, Sorry For Your Trouble , was published. His novel, Be Mine , was published in June 2023 and is the fifth —and presumably final— book in Ford's so-called "Bascombe series." Ford began publishing his short stories in
3648-422: Was asked “What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?” To which Ishiguro responded: “I tend not to reread whole books over and over, even my big favorites. But I do keep returning to certain short stories, the way I might to favorite pieces of music.” Ishiguro mentioned “Rock Springs” (the actual story) as one of his favorite stories. Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated ( SI )
3712-457: Was eight years old, his father had a severe heart failure , and thereafter Ford spent as much time with his grandfather, a former prizefighter and hotel owner in Little Rock, Arkansas , as he did with his parents in Mississippi. Ford's father died of a second heart attack in 1960. In Jackson, Ford lived across the street from the home of author Eudora Welty . Ford's grandfather had worked for
3776-490: Was honored with the award. For a 2002 list of the top 200 Division I sports colleges in the U.S., see footnote. The following list contains the athletes with most covers. The magazine's cover is the basis of a sports myth known as the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx . Most covers by athlete, 1954–2016 Most covers by team, 1954 – May 2008 Most covers by sport, 1954–2009 Celebrities on
3840-414: Was important to know such things. I wasn't the most curious of young men, even though I give myself credit for not letting that deter me." Actually, Oakley Hall and E. L. Doctorow were teaching there and Ford has acknowledged they influenced him. In 1971, he was selected for a three-year appointment in the University of Michigan Society of Fellows. Ford published his first novel, A Piece of My Heart ,
3904-403: Was probably a wide gulf between what I could do and what would succeed with readers. I felt that I'd had a chance to write two novels, and neither of them had really created much stir, so maybe I should find real employment, and earn my keep." During 1982, the magazine was terminated, and when Sports Illustrated did not hire Ford, he resumed writing fiction, composing The Sportswriter , about
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#17329019294413968-477: Was publishing AI-generated articles credited to authors who were also AI-generated; the latter practice apparently extended to their profile photos, which the website alleged were sourced from online marketplaces selling such photos. After Futurism reached out to The Arena Group, the magazine purportedly removed some of the implicated writers and republished their articles under other AI-generated authors with notes disclaiming its staff's involvement. In response to
4032-426: Was sold to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) following the sale of Time Inc. to Meredith Corporation . The Arena Group (formerly theMaven, Inc.) was subsequently awarded a 10-year license to operate the Sports Illustrated –branded editorial operations, while ABG licenses the brand for other non-editorial ventures and products. In January 2024, The Arena Group missed a quarterly licensing payment, leading ABG to terminate
4096-562: Was well received. In September of that year, George Johnson in The New York Times wrote: ”the finest of them achieve luminous moments, moments with potential to change how the reader sees and thinks. The stories of Rock Springs are extremely concentrated, so a reader who pays attention not only wants to turn pages but to prolong them, experience the supple, ironic, expanding and contracting medium Mr. Ford compounds from everyday speech. What distinguishes his stories from those of many contemporaries who share conventions of style and subject matter
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