Clifford Chase
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Clifford Chase | |
|---|---|
 Chase in 2007 | |
| Born | 1958 (age 67–68) Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author |
| Alma mater | University of California, Santa Cruz City College of New York |
Clifford Chase (born 1958) is an American author who has written the memoir The Tooth Fairy[1][2] and Winkie, a novel about a sentient teddy bear accused of terrorism. He has also written additional memoirs and edited Queer 13: Lesbian and Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade,[3] a shortlisted nominee in the Children's/Young Adult and Nonfiction Anthologies categories at the 1999 Lambda Literary Awards.
Chase was born in 1958 in Connecticut[4] as the youngest of five brothers and sisters. All of his other siblings were much older than him except for his brother Ken, who was only six years older. Chase had a close relationship with Ken, who like him was also gay, and Chase was deeply affected when his brother died of AIDS at the age of 37.[5][6]
Chase's family moved when he was young to San Jose, California, where he grew up.[4] He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1980 and received a graduate degree in creative writing from the City College of New York in 1987. In the 1980s he worked in public relations at Newsweek.[4]
Chase currently lives in Brooklyn.[7] He's worked as a visiting writer at Bowling Green State University, where he instructed courses in creative writing for the English Department, and as a visiting writer and professor of English at Wesleyan University.[8][9]
Writing career
Chase's memoir On the Shoulder of the Road, about his brother Ken and the rest of his family, was published in 1994.[4] The following year he released The Hurry-Up Song: A Memoir of Losing My Brother, which The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review called "an honest assessment of the gruesome realities of coming to terms with the premature death of a brother."[6][10]
Chase's first novel, Winkie, was released in 2006 and is a satirical tale of a sentient teddy bear accused of terrorism. The novel was named a must-read selection by Entertainment Weekly, a notable book by The New York Times, and was a finalist for a Borders Original Voices Award.[11] The novel has since been translated into nearly a dozen languages[11] and in 2011 was adapted into a play at 59E59 Theaters by the Godlight Theater Company.[12]
In 2014, Chase released his book The Tooth Fairy: Parents, Lovers, and Other Wayward Deities, which Publishers Weekly called "a memoir for the Twitter age."[13]
