Nic Pizzolatto

Nic Pizzolatto
Born (1975-10-18) October 18, 1975
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Occupation Author, screenwriter, producer
Nationality American
Alma mater Louisiana State University
University of Arkansas
Genre Literary fiction
Crime fiction
Neo-noir
Notable works True Detective
Spouse Amy Pizzolatto
Children 1
Website
www.nicpizzolatto.com

Nicholas Austin[1] "Nic" Pizzolatto (born October 18, 1975) is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for creating the HBO crime drama series True Detective.

Early life

Pizzolatto was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is of Italian descent.[2] Pizzolatto grew up poor[2][3] in a working-class Catholic family[4][5] in New Orleans and at age 5,[6] he and his family moved to the rural area of Lake Charles, Louisiana.[7]

He graduated from St. Louis Catholic High School in 1993[8][9] and left home when he was 17.[2] He attended Louisiana State University on a visual arts scholarship.[3][10] After he graduated from LSU with a B.A. in English and philosophy,[11] his fiction professor and mentor died. Pizzolatto gave up writing and moved to Austin, Texas, where he worked as a bartender and technical writer[11] for four years.[3] He later enrolled in an MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas, and received the Lily Peter Fellowship for poetry and Walton fellowship in 2003.[11][12][13][14] He graduated in 2005.[11]

Career

Fiction writing

Short stories

He wrote two short stories when he was completing his MFA at the University of Arkansas – "Ghost-Birds" and "Between Here and the Yellow Sea" – which were sold to The Atlantic Monthly.[3][15] In 2004, his work was among the finalists for the National Magazine Award in Fiction.[11] His collection of short fiction Between Here and the Yellow Sea was long-listed for the 2006 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and was also named one of the top five fiction debuts of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine.[16]

He also received an honorable mention from the Pushcart Prize, and his short story "Wanted Man" is included in Best American Mystery Stories 2009.

Novels

His first novel, Galveston, was published by Scribner's in June 2010.[17] It sold translations in France, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway, Bulgaria, Poland, Russia, Portugal and Arab countries. In 2005, Pizzolatto was named one of Poets & Writers magazine's best new writers. In 2010, Galveston earned him the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, the French Academy’s award for Best First Novel, Foreign.[7] It was also a 2010 Edgar Award finalist for best first novel.[12] Galveston also won third prize in the 2010 Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, and additionally won the 2011 Spur Award for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America.

Teaching

Before creating True Detective, Pizzolatto taught fiction and literature as Kenan Visiting Writer (2005–2006) at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in Spring 2008 at the University of Chicago, and as Assistant Professor of English (2008–2012) at DePauw University.[11] He moved to California to pursue a screenwriting career in the fall of 2010.[12]

Television writing

In 2011, he wrote two episodes for the first season of the crime drama television series The Killing.[18] Pizzolatto was dissatisfied by the dynamic between the showrunner and the writers of the show; he remarked that, "I want to be the guiding vision. I don't do well serving someone else's vision."[6] He decided to leave the show after spending two weeks in the writers room on the show's second season.[6]

In 2012, he created an original television series called True Detective, which was sold to HBO and completed shooting in June 2013, with Pizzolatto as executive producer, sole writer, and showrunner.[19] It premiered in January 2014, and became the most watched freshman show in the network's history.[20] The show was critically acclaimed[21][22] and was so popular the finale crashed HBO's HBO Go streaming service.[23] Pizzolatto listed several influences on the show's first season: philosophy books such as Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Eugene Thacker's In The Dust Of This Planet, Ray Brassier's Nihil Unbound, Jim Crawford's Confessions of an Antinatalist, and David Benatar's Better Never To Have Been. Pizzolatto also mentions horror authors Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, and Ligotti.[24]

A new season of True Detective premiered on June 21, 2015, with Pizzolatto again writing all the episodes.[25]

In late 2015, it was announced that Pizzolatto had signed a new deal with HBO through 2018.[26]

Screenwriting

Pizzolatto has co-written the screenplay, along with Richard Wenk, for The Magnificent Seven, a contemporary film remake of the period-piece western The Magnificent Seven (1960) (which is itself a western remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai). Antoine Fuqua directs, and cast members include Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard and others. The film is slated to be released on September 23, 2016.

Awards

The first two short stories Pizzolatto submitted sold simultaneously to The Atlantic. His collection of short fiction Between Here and the Yellow Sea was long-listed for the 2006 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and named one of the top five fiction debuts of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine.[16]

Pizzolatto was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2004. He received an honorable mention from the Pushcart Prize, and his story "Wanted Man" is included in Best American Mystery Stories 2009. While he was a graduate student at the University of Arkansas Programs in Creative Writing, Nic earned a number of awards in both fiction and poetry including a Lily Peter Fellowship in Poetry and a Walton Fellowship in Fiction.

His novel Galveston won third prize in the 2010 Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, and was a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for best first novel. It won the 2011 Spur Award for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America. In France, Galveston was awarded the Prix du Premier Roman étranger[27] (Best Foreign First Novel) for 2011, by a jury of literary critics.

For the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, Pizzolatto was nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for "The Secret Fate of All Life".[28]

For the 67th Writers Guild of America Awards, Pizzolatto and the series won for Best Drama Series and Best New Series.[29]

In 2015, Pizzolatto was nominated for a Producers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Drama for True Detective.[30]

In 2015, Pizzolatto was named British GQ Writer of the Year.[31]

Pizzolatto and True Detective won the 2015 British Academy Television Award for Best International Programme.[32]

Personal life

Pizzolatto has lived in California[12] with his wife and daughter since 2010.[13][33]

Filmography

Films

Television series

Writer

Year Show Season Episode Episode number Original airdate Notes
2011 The Killing 1 "What You Have Left" 6 May 1, 2011
"Orpheus Descending" 13 June 19, 2011 Written by Pizzolatto & Veena Sud
2014 True Detective 1 "The Long Bright Dark" 1 January 12, 2014
"Seeing Things" 2 January 19, 2014
"The Locked Room" 3 January 26, 2014
"Who Goes There" 4 February 9, 2014
"The Secret Fate of All Life" 5 February 16, 2014
"Haunted Houses" 6 February 23, 2014
"After You've Gone" 7 March 2, 2014
"Form and Void" 8 March 9, 2014
2015 2 "The Western Book of the Dead" 9 June 21, 2015
"Night Finds You" 10 June 28, 2015
"Maybe Tomorrow" 11 July 5, 2015
"Down Will Come" 12 July 12, 2015 Written by Pizzolatto & Scott Lasser
"Other Lives" 13 July 19, 2015
"Church in Ruins" 14 July 26, 2015 Written by Pizzolatto & Scott Lasser
"Black Maps and Motel Rooms" 15 August 2, 2015
"Omega Station" 16 August 9, 2015

Publications

Notes and references

  1. ↑ http://my.depauw.edu/admin/acadaffairs/faculty/faculty.asp
  2. 1 2 3 Strainchamps, Bernard (September 2, 2012). "Where I came from a lot of people viewed violence merely as efficient communication". feedbooks. Archived from the original on November 15, 2014. Retrieved November 15, 2014. I'm Italian from the American Deep South
  3. 1 2 3 4 Zeitchik, Steven (January 8, 2014). "Nic Pizzolatto, the brooding poet behind 'True Detective'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  4. ↑ Hughes, Sarah (February 17, 2014). "True Detective: 'I didn't want it to be just another serial-killer show'". The Guardian. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  5. ↑ Ringen, Jonathan (February 28, 2014). "The Dark Thrills of 'True Detective'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 Walker, Dave (July 7, 2014). "Nic Pizzolatto, New Orleans-born novelist, discusses HBO's upcoming 'True Detective'". nola.com. Archived from the original on October 19, 2014. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  7. 1 2 Slotnick, Alexander (January 8, 2014). "NIC PIZZOLATTO". The Last Magazine. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  8. ↑ Seiber, Cliff (August 9, 2012). "Author Nic Pizzolatto to produce show for HBO". American Press. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  9. ↑ "St. Louis Catholic Alumni Newsletter". St. Louis Catholic High School. Spring 2013. Archived from the original on November 15, 2014. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  10. ↑ Seiber, Cliff (August 20, 2012). "Sunday Talk: Pizzolatto's star quickly rising". American Press. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Spurr, Kim (June 16, 2005). "Fiction writer, poet Pizzolatto to be visiting writer in 2005-06". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Archived from the original on August 24, 2014. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Rose, Lacey (August 6, 2014). "'True Detective's' Nic Pizzolatto on Season 2, 'Stupid Criticism' and Rumors of On-Set Drama". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  13. 1 2 "About Nic". Nic Pizzolatto. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  14. ↑ "Nic Pizzolatto". The Missouri Review. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  15. ↑ Christopher Orr, Before True Detective: The Short Stories of Nic Pizzolatto, The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/02/before-em-true-detective-em-the-short-stories-of-nic-pizzolatto/283992/
  16. 1 2 "2006 Longlist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award in association with the Irish Times". Munster Literature Centre. 2006. Archived from the original on November 9, 2006. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  17. ↑ Lehane, Dennis (July 16, 2010). "Love Among the Ruined". New York Times (Sunday Book Review). Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  18. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (January 7, 2014). "'True Detective' Creator Nic Pizzolatto on Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson His Gripping New HBO Series". HitFix. What's Alan Watching? Inside Television with Alan Sepinwall. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  19. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (April 30, 2012). "HBO Picks Up Matthew-Woody Series ‘True Detective’ With Eight-Episode Order". Deadline. PMC. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  20. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (April 15, 2014). "‘True Detective’ Now Most Watched HBO Freshman Series Ever". Deadline. PMC. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  21. ↑ "True Detective : Season 1". Metacritic. Retrieved July 5, 2014. Metacritic score: 87
  22. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (March 10, 2014). "'True Detective' Creator Nic Pizzolatto Looks Back on Season 1". HitFix. What's Alan Watching? Inside Television with Alan Sepinwall. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  23. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (March 9, 2014). "‘True Detective’ Finale Crashes HBO Go". Deadline. PMC. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  24. ↑ Calia, Michael (February 2, 2014). "Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  25. ↑ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenkilloran/2015/06/10/true-detective-season-2-hbo-series-gets-a-clean-slate-but-has-it-learned-from-its-mistakes/
  26. ↑ http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/true-detective-season-3-still-up-in-the-air-as-hbo-inks-deal-with-nic-pizzolatto-through-2018-1201642681/
  27. ↑ "Marien Defalvard et Nic Pizzolatto, lauréats du Prix du Premier roman". Libération. AFP. November 16, 2011. Archived from the original on October 4, 2012. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  28. ↑ Mitovich, Matt Webb (August 25, 2014). "Emmys 2014: Sherlock, Breaking Bad, Horror Story: Coven, True Detective and Many Repeat Winners Grab Gold". TVLine. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
  29. ↑ Zuckerman, Esther (February 14, 2015). "The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game win WGA Awards". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  30. ↑ "All Nominations for 26th Annual Producers Guild Awards". Producers Guild. January 5, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2015.
  31. ↑ http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/men-of-the-year/home/winners-2015/nic-pizzolatto-writer-gq-men-of-the-year-awards-2015
  32. ↑ http://awards.bafta.org/award/2015/television/international
  33. ↑ Romano, Andrew (February 4, 2014). "Inside the Obsessive, Strange Mind of True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
  34. ↑ Pizzolatto, Nic (Spring 2004). "1987, The Races". The Missouri Review 27 (1): 83–93. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  35. ↑ Pizzolatto, Nic (Fall 2005). "Haunted Earth". The Iowa Review 35 (2): 14–24. ISSN 0021-065X. 5543752036. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
  36. ↑ Pizzolatto, Nic (Winter 2009–2010). "Graves of Light". Ploughshares 35 (4): 140–156. ISSN 0048-4474. 542960158. Retrieved July 5, 2014.

External links

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