Dave Eggers
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Dave Eggers (born in 1970) is an American writer, author of the memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and editor of the literary magazine McSweeney's. He is most closely identified with the literary scene in San Francisco, where he lives.
Eggers grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before he became a writer he was "a poorly paid Salon editor" and founding editor of Might magazine.
Eggers's first book was a memoir of his parents' death, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000). In 2002 he published his first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity (an expanded and revised version was released as Sacrament in 2003).
Eggers is also the editor of McSweeney's, a quarterly literary journal and small independent publisher. McSweeney's now has a monthly magazine about books and things entitled The Believer, which has its own small publishing imprint, Believer Books.
He used the proceeds from his books to found 826 Valencia, San Francisco's only independent pirate supply store (http://www.826valencia.org/store/) (a front and fundraiser for a charitable drop-in writing center (http://www.826valencia.org/) for children). 826 franchises have since been opened in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and more.
In 2004, a collection of his short stories, How We Are Hungry: Stories was published. And his novel The Unforbidden Is Compulsory; or, Optimism (on "the American political circus") was serialized (http://www.salon.com/books/eggers/) on Salon.com. Eggers also edits the annual series The Best American Nonrequired Reading.
With his younger brother Toph, Eggers has published a pair of "educational" books for children under the name Dr. and Mr. Haggis-On-Whey (http://www.haggis-on-whey.com/). Their books, critically received as a postmodern attack on science's "self-serving attempt to disseminate knowledge through encyclopedia sets," ask the hard-hitting questions that other children's books avoid, like 'Do giraffes still control everything we see in mirrors?' (http://www.haggis-on-whey.com/books.php?b=gg_mirrors)
External links
- Author page (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/authorpages/eggers/eggers.html) on the McSweeney's website (features a detailed bibliography)it:Dave Eggers