Gil King, graduate of Niskayuna High School, returned to his hometown on Monday to talk with high school students. King, who visited the Writers Institute in September 2013, received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, The Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, an elegantly written account of the future Supreme Court Justice’s role in defending four black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Florida in 1949.
Bill Buell of the Schenectady Gazette reports:
[King] was thrilled that so many students seemed interested and excited by their interaction with a Pulitzer Prize winner.He conceded a similar situation probably wouldn’t have interested him when he was in high school.
“Yeah, I would have checked out mentally of something like this back then,” he said. “But everybody seemed to be paying attention and that was nice. They asked a lot of questions, and some were very passionate and I love that. I was shocked. I can’t believe how much time I let pass in high school without paying attention to anything.”
More in the Gazette: http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2014/mar/04/0304_king/
More about King's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/king_gilbert13.html
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Pulitzer Winner Gil King Returns to Niskayuna High
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Rejected by 35 Publishers, Gilbert King
“I also want beginning writers to know that you need some good luck to be successful. This book was rejected by 35 publishers, mostly because my first book didn’t sell very well.”
Gilbert King, Niskayuna native and Pulitzer-winning author of Devil in the Grove, talks to Jack Rightmyer of the Gazette about writing, Thurgood Marshall, boyhood dreams of being a baseball player, and more.
Article in the Gazette: http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2013/sep/21/marshalls-legacy-inspires-book-niskayuna-native/?free
Devil in the Grove to be a Major Motion Picture
Devil in the Grove, by Gilbert King (who visits Albany today), will be a Hollywood film from Lionsgate studios, which reportedly sees the film as a high priority.
Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, the co-writers of Ridley Scott's forthcoming biblical epic, Exodus, will write the script. Allison Shearmur, who produced The Hunger Games, is producing.
Read more in Deadline Hollywood: http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/lionsgate-acquires-pulitzer-prize-winner-devil-in-the-grove-seminal-civil-rights-case-for-thurgood-marshall/
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Gilbert King, Pulitzer Winning Author, to Visit Next Week
Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove (2012),
a nonfiction account of an early case in the legal career of Thurgood Marshall,
America's first African-American Supreme Court Justice, will read from and
discuss his work on Thursday, September 26, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital
Hall, Performing Arts Center, on the University at Albany's uptown campus.
Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m., the author will present an informal seminar
in the same location. The events are free and open to the public, and are
sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute in conjunction with CELEBRATE
AND ADVANCE, a weeklong celebration culminating in the inauguration of
UAlbany's 19th President, Robert J. Jones, Ph.D.
Gilbert King, Niskayuna native, received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General
Nonfiction for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys,
and the Dawn of a New America (2012), a meticulously researched, elegantly
written account of the future Supreme Court Justice's role in defending four
black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Florida in 1949. Of the
four defendants, one was murdered by a white mob before he could stand trial,
and two were murdered by the local county sheriff after they had been
exonerated by the U. S. Supreme Court.
The Salon reviewer said, "King recreates an important yet
overlooked moment in American history with a chilling, atmospheric narrative
that reads more like a Southern Gothic novel than a work of history." The
book was also named a "Best Book of 2012" by the Boston Globe,
Christian Science Monitor, and Library Journal.
In writing Devil in the Grove, King obtained access to two
heretofore unpublished and unpublicized sources of information: the
confidential files of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the
unedited files of the FBI. In previous, more comprehensive biographies of Marshall,
the Groveland case had been treated as little more than a footnote to a
distinguished legal career. King's research, however, brings back to life the
shock and drama of a courtroom battle that established important legal
precedents on the road to ending Jim Crow laws in the South.
King's relative rise from obscurity has generated a fair amount of interest
in the writing community and on the internet. Especially remarked upon is the
fact that, after the announcement that he had won the Pulitzer Prize, the
surprised author informed a New York Times interviewer, "I'd just
gotten a notice from my publisher that the book had been 'remaindered.'"
Another ironic detail of King's biography is that he flunked English at
Niskayuna High School and had to attend summer school after his junior year,
according to an interview with Paul Grondahl of the Times Union.
A featured contributor to the Smithsonian magazine history blog,
King is also the author of The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder,
and the Search for Justice in the American South (2008), an account of the
wrongful conviction and death sentence of a 17-year-old black boy in Louisiana
in 1946. The Counterpunch magazine reviewer called it, "...almost
certainly the best book on capital punishment in America since Mailer's The
Executioner's Song."
King's appearance is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute in
conjunction with "Celebrate and Advance," a weeklong celebration at
UAlbany culminating in the inauguration of the new University president, Robert
J. Jones. For additional information on all inauguration week events go to: www.albany.edu/inauguration .
For additional information on Gilbert King's appearances, contact the
Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.