Major Works
David Galef, photo courtesy of the author
Novels
- Flesh. New York: The Permanent Press, 1995.
- Turning Japanese. New York: The Permanent Press, 1998.
- How to Cope with Suburban Stress (to be published)
Short Story Collections:
- Laugh Track (2002)
Children’s Books
- Tracks. Illus. Tedd Arnold. New York: William Morrow, 1996.
- The Little Red Bicycle. Illus. Carol Nicklaus. New York: Random House, 1988.
Criticism
- Second Thoughts: A Focus on Rereading. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 1998. [Editor and contributor.] - The Supporting Cast: A Study of Flat and Minor Characters. University
Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.
Poetry
David Galef in front of Square Books, Oxford, MS. Photo by Nancy Jacobs
- Even a Stone Buddha can Talk: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs (2000)
- Even Monkeys Fall from Trees, & Other Proverbs (1987)
Other
- 20 Over 40 (edited by David Galef and Beth Weinhouse, 2006)
Biography of David Galef
by Baxter Billingsley, SHS
David Galef was born on March 27, 1959, in New York, to Harold Galef and Winifred Galef. He attended Scarsdale High School and got his B.A. from Princeton University in English and creative writing in 1981. Galef went to Columbia University from 1983 to 1989 to study literature, and he received both his M.A. and his Ph.D. from there.
Galef has lived many places, including Japan where he taught English for one year. He then became an English professor at the University of Mississippi in 1989, teaching twentieth-century British literature, modernism, creative writing, speculative fiction, narrative theory, and stylistics. Galef has written and published more than seventy short stories in magazines around the world. Some of the magazines include the British Punch to the Czech Prague Revue, the Canadian Prism International, and the American Shenandoah. He has also had many essays appear in publications such as the New York Times and published numerous books. Galef has received many awards for his writings, including the Henfield Foundation Grant, Mississippi Arts Commission award, the Writers Exchange Award, and he has had Ragdale and Yaddo fellowships.
Galef was married in 1992, loves to ride bicycles, and is a member of the U.S. Cycling Federation and the Mississippi Cycling Association.
Galef was the administrator of the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi until 2008 when he became an English professor and creative writing program director at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
Reviews
Baxter Billingsley, SHS Researcher
A Review of Laugh Track
by Baxter Billingsley, SHS
Laugh Track is a collection of fifteen short stories that range from the world of a psychotic to the world of an elementary school teacher All the stories have goals to be reached by the characters, and the ending results are unpredictable. The settings of the stories put the reader in believable atmospheres to which everyone can relate. The story endings definitely fulfill the reader’s expectations. Overall, the book is worth the time to read as it supplies the reader with entertainment and food for thought.
Interview with David Galef (December 9, 2002)
by Baxter Billingsley, SHS
1. When and where were you born? What are your parents’ names? What high school and college did you attend?
New York, 1959. Harold Galef and Winifred Galef, nee Kron. Scarsdale High School, Princeton University, and Columbia University (for grad school).
2. Who is your favorite author/authors?
Too many out there. Vladimir Nabokov, Annie Proulx, W. H. Auden….
3. What author influenced you the most?
Oddly, P. G.Wodehouse, probably because I read all ninety-plus of his books when I was an adolescent.
4. When did you become interested in writing?
Since I could wield a pencil, but I started writing original fiction around age seventeen.
5. What kind of student where you in school?
Bright, talkative, annoying.
6. How long did it take you to write Laugh Track?
Since the stories range from twenty years ago to a few years ago, I suppose you could say “two decades,” but interspersed with a lot of other projects.
7. Are you working on a new book right now? If so, do you have a title for it and what is it about?
My third novel, How to Cope with Suburban Stress, about the intersection of a decaying suburban marriage and a pedophile.
8. Have you received any awards for your writings?
Henfield Foundation Grant, Mississippi Arts Commission award, Writers Exchange Award, Ragdale and Yaddo fellowships.
9. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Write and then write some more. Practice improves your style in every field I can think of. So does watching the pros, which in this field means reading.
Related Websites
- Southern Scribe interviews David Galef.
- Dear Reader by Square Books discusses Galef’s Laugh Track.
- Ole Miss Writers Page has Galef information.
- Read Mississippi Breakdown, a short story by Galef on storySouth.
Bibliography
- “David Galef.” The Mississippi Writer’s Page. 2002. 9 December 2002. <http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/galef_david>.
- Galef, David. E-mail Interview. 9 December 2002.