Ward Just

Ward Just (born 1935 in Waukegan, Illinois) is an American writer. He is the author of 15 novels and numerous short stories.

Ward Just graduated from Cranbrook School in 1953. He briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the " Waukegan (Illinois) News-Sun". He was also a correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post from 1959 to 1969, after which he left journalism to write fiction.

His influences include Henry James and Ernest Hemingway. His novel "An Unfinished Season" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005. His novel "Echo House" was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997. He has twice been a finalist for the O. Henry Award: in 1985 for his short story "About Boston", and again in 1986 for his short story "The Costa Brava, 1959". His fiction is often concerned with the influence of national politics on Americans' personal lives. Much of it is set in Washington D.C. and foreign countries. Another common theme is the alienation felt by Midwesterners in the East.

Works

Novels

*"A Soldier of the Revolution" (1970)
*"Stringer" (1974)
*"Nicholson at Large" (1975)
*"A Family Trust" (1978)
*"In the City of Fear" (1982)
*"The American Blues" (1984)
*"The American Ambassador" (1987)
*"Jack Gance" (1989)
*"The Translator" (1991)
*"Ambition & Love" (1994)
*"Echo House" (1997)
*"A Dangerous Friend" (1999)
*"The Weather in Berlin" (2002)
*"An Unfinished Season" (2004)
*"Forgetfulness" (2006)

Collections

*"The Congressman Who Loved Flaubert" (1973)
*"Honor, Power, Riches, Fame, and the Love of Women" (1979)
*"Twenty-one: Selected Stories" (1990)
*" Lowell Limpett and Two Stories" (2001)

Nonfiction books

*"To What End" (1968)
*"Military Men" (1970)

Plays

*"Lowell Limpett" (2001)

Anthologized in

*"Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959-1969 (Part One)" (1998)

External links

*Houghton Mifflin [http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/authordetail.cfm?authorID=687 author page for Ward Just]
* [http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/perseus/author_detail.jsp?id=1000022160 Perseus Books Group author page for Ward Just]
* [http://www.robotwisdom.com/jorn/just.html Ward Just resources on the Web]
* [http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1998/spring/nelson-ward-justs-washington/ Ward Just's Washington] by Michael Nelson, published in The Virginia Quarterly Review
* [http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4487/Just-Ward.html Biography with brief summaries of novels]
* [http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/just/ Brief biography with links to book excerpts] from the PBS series "Reporting America At War" produced by Insignia Films and WETA
* [http://www.cbc.ca/wordsatlarge/features/feature.php?storyId=272 Interview, online at CBC Words at Large (audio)]