Robert K. Elder

Robert K. Elder (born 1976) is an American journalist, author and newspaper columnist. His culture pieces and profiles run in the "Chicago Tribune," where he also writes Screen Scene, a column about indie film.

A Montana native, Elder interviewed Ken Kesey for his high school newspaper. The author encouraged Elder to attend his alma mater, the University of Oregon, which Elder did two years later. During his academic career, Elder ran campus publication "The Oregon Voice". He also annotated and archived Kesey's personal papers at the university's Knight Library. Elder has published in "The New York Times", "Premiere", "The Los Angeles Times", "The Boston Globe", "Salon.com", "The Oregonian", among other publications. In the late 1990s, Elder worked for several publications and changed his byline to "Robert K. Elder" after working with another Rob Elder at the "San Jose Mercury News".

In 2000, Elder was hired as a staff writer for the "Chicago Tribune".

In 2005, Elder edited "", the first authoritative English-language chronicle of the life, legacy and career film director John Woo. He has also contributed to books on poker, comic books, film design and author Neil Gaiman.

Elder teaches journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, in addition to feature writing and entertainment reporting at Columbia College Chicago. A former member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Elder has taught film classes at Facets Film School.

In June 2006, Elder debunked the long-believed Chicago legend that Del Close had donated his skull for use as a stage prop to the Goodman Theatre. While Close had indeed donated his skull to the theater to serve as Yorick in productions of Hamlet, the actual delivery of the skull never happened, due to medical and legal issues. In his reporting, Elder noticed, among other things, that the skull had teeth (Close wore dentures) and the screws holding it together were rusty, making the specimen much older than it should have been. After a brief period of denial, those responsible admitted the ruse in "The New Yorker".

Bibliography

*"John Woo, Interviews", University Press of Mississippi, 2005 (editor)
*"The Neil Gamain Reader", Wildside Press, 2007 (contributor)

External links

* [http://www.robelder.com Official Site of Robert K. Elder]
* [http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2001/11/16/kesey99/index.html Ken Kesey Remembered]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/search/article-page.html?res=9D0CEFD6163EF93BA25753C1A9669C8B63 Profile of Joe Sacco in "The New York Times"]
* [http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/search/mmx-0512040442dec04,1,4975765.story Ang Lee on "Brokeback Mountain"]
* [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0610160215oct16,1,5095863,print.story Undercover Agent Exposed]
* [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author-3434/ Film Review Archive at Rottentomatoes.com]
* [http://www.johnwoointerviews.com John Woo:Interviews]