Tony Ardizzone

Ardizzone was born and raised on the North Side of Chicago.^[1] He attended Roman Catholic grammar school and high school taught by the Christian Brothers.^[2] He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1971 and from Bowling Green State University with an MFA in 1975. In 1973 he also did a year of graduate study at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

He taught at Saint Mary's Center for Learning (Chicago), Bowling Green State University, Old Dominion University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the low-residency MFA Progam at Vermont College in Montpelier.^[3]

Ardizzone currently lives in Portland, Oregon.^[1]

In addition to his extensive work as a creative writing instructor, Tony Ardizzone is widely acknowledged to be the originator of the "Wax The Floor Metaphor" for fiction writing, a well-known model for the drafting process of a literary work. Ardizzone's model differs from others' in key ways (certain imagery and performative embellishments used) but is considered by many to be the purest, most authentic version. The metaphor essentially advises students of creative writing to work in stages of complete drafts from beginning to end. Just as it would be ill-advised for a janitor to sweep, mop, wax and buff a single square of a tile floor before moving on to the next and repeating the process, students are warned with this model not to spend time editing and polishing individual paragraphs and chapters before the first draft has been completed and "the entire picture laid out," as novelist John Updike once put it.^[4]

Novels

• In the Name of the Father (Doubleday & Company, 1978) ISBN 978-0-385-14080-5
• Heart of the Order (Henry Holt and Company, 1986) ISBN 978-0-03-008503-1
• In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu (Picador/St. Martin's Press, 1999) ISBN 978-0-312-26341-6 (trade paperback edition 2000, Picador USA)
• The Whale Chaser (Academy Chicago Publishers, 2010) ISBN 978-0-89733-610-9 (trade paperback edition 2015, Chicago Review Press)
• In Bruno's Shadow (Guernica Editions, 2023) ISBN 978-1-77183-777-4

Short story collections

• The Evening News (University of Georgia Press, 1986) ISBN 978-0-8203-0860-9 (trade paperback edition 2013, University of Georgia Press)
• Larabi's Ox: Stories of Morocco (Milkweed Editions, 1992) ISBN 978-0-915943-72-2 (trade paperback edition marking the 25th anniversary of the book's publication, retitlted The Arab's Ox, Bordighera Press, 2018) ISBN 978-1-59954-120-4
• Taking it Home: Stories from the Neighborhood (The University of Illinois Press, 1996) ISBN 978-0-252-06483-8

Anthologies (selected)

• Carol Bonomo Albright; Joanna Clapps Herman, eds. (2008). "Lamb Soup". Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana. Fordham University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-8232-2910-9. Tony Ardizzone.
• Bill Tonelli, ed. (2005). "Cavadduzzo's of Cicero". The Italian American Reader. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-000667-9.
• Hilda Raz, ed. (2001). "Larabi's Ox". Best of Prairie schooner: fiction and poetry. University of Nebraska Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-8032-8972-7. Tony Ardizzone.
• Bill Henderson, ed. (1992). The Pushcart Prize, XVI: Best of the Small Presses. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-73435-0.

Editor

• The Habit of Art: Best Stories from the Indiana University Fiction Workshop. Indiana University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-253-21807-0. Tony Ardizzone.
• Intro 12 (anthology of fiction and poetry). Norfolk: The Associated Writing Programs. 1981. ISBN 978-0-936266-02-2.
• Intro 11 (anthology of fiction and poetry). Norfolk: Associated Writing Programs, 1980.
• Intro 10 (anthology of fiction and poetry). New York: Hendel & Reinke. 1979. ISBN 978-0-918656-05-6.

Interviews

• "Fiction as Life: An Interview with Tony Ardizzone", by Olivia Kate Cerrone. (Il Regno/Magna Grece: Ethno-Cultural Journal for People of Southern-Italian Descent, 2011)^[5]
• "Tony Ardizzone", interviewed by Derek Alger (Pif Magazine, 2012)^[6]
• "Tony Ardizzone reads and discusses his book 'In the Name of the Father,'" interview by Studs Terkel (The WFMT Studs Terkel Radio Archive, 1979)^[7]

• Black Warrior Review Literary Award in Fiction^[8]
• 1985 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship^[9]
• 1986 Virginia Prize for Fiction for Heart of the Order^[10]
• 1986 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction for The Evening News^[11]
• Lawrence Foundation Award^[8]
• 1990 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship^[12]
• Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award^[3]
• 1992 Chicago Foundation for Literature Award for Fiction for Larabi's Ox: Stories of Morocco^[13]
• 1992 Milkweed National Fiction Prize for Larabi's Ox: Stories of Morocco^[14]
• Cream City Review Editors' Award in Nonfiction^[3]
• The Pushcart Prize^[8]
• Bruno Arcudi Literary Prize^[8]
• 2022 Oregon Literary Fellowship^[15]