It’s no surprise that TIPsters have published books, written for leading newspapers, and won literary awards—after all, TIPsters go on to do great things in all fields. But we’re focused on words this month, so here’s a look at a few of the TIP alumni who have forged exceptional writing careers.
John Green
John Green is the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, and the just-released Turtles All the Way Down. His books have been published in more than a dozen languages and turned into feature films. He also won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award, the 2009 Edgar Award, and has twice been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
On top of his writing career, Green and his brother Hank ceased textual communication and began to talk primarily through videoblogs posted to YouTube as vlogbrothers. The videos spawned a community of people called “nerdfighters,” which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poverty in the developing world. More than three hundred million people have subscribed to vlogbrothers.
Ben Greenman
Ben Greenman is the author of more than ten books, including the novel The Slippage, the short-story collection What He’s Poised to Do, and a number of memoirs cowritten with famous musicians, including Mo’ Meta Blues with Questlove (of the Roots) and I am Brian Wilson with Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys). He was previously a contributing editor at the New Yorker and has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Paris Review, Zoetrope: All Story, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere.
Sherry Erlich Rauh
An award-winning author, medical journalist, and television producer, Sherry’s recognized career includes hundreds of projects for print, television, and online media. Sherry has written six children’s books and won numerous national awards, including the Teachers’ Choice Award for Champ’s Story: Dogs Get Cancer Too, the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book Award for Because I Am Your Daddy, and the NAPPA Gold Award for Because You Are My Baby.
Before becoming an author, Sherry spent six years at CNN Headline News as a writer and medical producer. She continues to write as a freelance journalist. Sherry has also written and produced dozens of scripts for programs airing on Lifetime, WE, TLC, and public television. In 2007, she won a Freddie Award in medical journalism.
Catherine Rampell
One of the youngest syndicated newspaper columnists in the country, Catherine Rampell is an acclaimed journalist with the Washington Post. She writes a twice-weekly opinion column covering economics, public policy, politics, and culture, using a data-driven approach. She also writes for the Post’s Rampage blog.
Prior to her work at the Post, Rampell was an economics reporter at the New York Times, where she was the founding editor of the Economix blog and wrote regular theater reviews for the paper. In recognition for her work, Rampell has won the Weidenbaum Center Award for Evidence-Based Journalism and has twice been a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award.
Karen Russel
Karen Russell is an acclaimed fiction writer whose debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She also received the prestigious MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2013 for her writing.
Russel has also published two short-story collections—St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and Vampires in the Lemon Grove—as well as a novella, Sleep Donation. Russell’s work has also appeared in leading literary journals like the New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, and Oxford American, and she has taught writing and literature at Columbia University, Williams College, Bard College, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of Rutgers, Camden.
Kevin Young
Kevin Young is an American poet and teacher of poetry. He has published ten books of poetry or essays, including Blue Laws, Book of Hours, and Dear Darkness, and he has edited eight additional collections of poetry. His new book, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, will be released in November, and has been longlisted for the National Book Award—one of the most important awards in American literature.
Young was previously the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, and is now the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He will also serve at the poetry editor of the New Yorker starting this November.