Tara Ison

American writer

Novelist
short story writer
essayist
screenwriter

Academic backgroundAlma materBennington College (MFA)Academic workInstitutions

Washington University in St. Louis
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Goddard College
Antioch University Los Angeles
UC Riverside
Arizona State University

Notable works

Reeling Through Life: How I Learned To Live, Love & Die at the Movies (2015)
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (co-wrote, 1991)

Websitetaraison.com

Tara Ison (born 1964^[1]) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

She is the author of three novels: Rockaway (Soft Skull Press, 2013), The List (Scribner, 2007), and A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, 1997), which was a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.^[2] A collection of essays, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned To Live, Love & Die at the Movies, was published by Soft Skull Press in January 2015, and was the winner of the 2015 PEN Southwest Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her short story collection, Ball, was published by Soft Skull Press in Fall 2015. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2020 in support of a short story collection tentatively titled "The Meat Bee," after her 2018 story published in Tin House.^[3] Her most recent novel, At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf (IG Publishing) was published in 2023 and was a New York Times Editors' Choice recommendation.^[4]^[5]

Work

Ison received her MFA in Fiction & Literature from Bennington College, where she was a student of Rick Moody.^[6] Institutions she has taught creative writing and screenwriting at include Washington University in St. Louis, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Goddard College and Antioch University Los Angeles. In addition, she has taught UC Riverside Palm Desert's MFA in Creative Writing program. Presently, she is a professor of English at Arizona State University.^[7] She also is faculty of New England College's MFA program.^[8]

Work by Ison has appeared in Tin House, Salon,^[9] O, The Oprah Magazine,^[10] Electric Literature,^[6] The Kenyon Review,^[11] The Rumpus,^[12] Nerve, Black Clock, TriQuarterly,^[13] The Santa Monica Review, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publishers Weekly,^[14]^[15] The Week, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly,^[16] the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune,^[17] the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies.

She is also the co-writer, with Neil Landau, of the 1991 cult classic movie Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.^[18] The pair had originally written the script in 1987.^[19]

Awards and honors

Ison is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships in 2020 and 2008, and a 2008 COLA Individual Artist Grant, as well as multiple Yaddo fellowships, a Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Study, a Brandeis National Women's Committee Award, a Thurber House Fiction Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, the Simon Blattner Fellowship from Northwestern University, and a California Arts Council Artists' Fellowship Award.

Books

Ball: Stories
Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies' Winner, 2015 PEN Southwest Award for Creative Nonfiction^[20]
A Child out of Alcatraz
The List
Rockaway
At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf

Screenwriting

Television

Year	Title	Episode	Network
1990	Doogie Howser, M.D.	'Nautilus for Naught'	ABC
1996	Ace Ventura: Pet Detective	'Remembrance of Trunks Past'	CBS

Film

Year	Title	Director
1991	Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (with Neil Landau)	Stephen Herek

References

^ Ison, Tara (November 14, 2012). "Tara Ison: How Alcatraz Became an Ebook". Meg Waite Clayton. Retrieved August 30, 2020. The story is set from 1930 to 1963, the year before I was born...
^ "Book Prizes – Los Angeles Times Festival of Books". Los Angeles Times. April 19, 2013. Archived from the original on February 25, 2010. Retrieved August 28, 2013.
^ "ASU authors Tara Ison and Sarah Viren named NEA fellows". ASU News. January 24, 2020. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
^ "▪ Books". Tara Ison. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
^ "9 New Books We Recommend This Week". The New York Times. May 11, 2023. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
^ ^a ^b Ison, Tara (October 28, 2015). ""Ball" by Tara Ison, Recommended by Rick Moody". Electric Literature. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
^ "ASU Directory Profile: Tara Ison". Arizona State University. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
^ "Creative Writing, MFA". New England College. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
^ Ison, Tara (February 2016). ""Too stupid to be c*nts": The new normal of toxic male entitlement on campus". Salon. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
^ Ison, Tara (December 11, 2018). "How an Anti-feminist Book Made Me Pause Before Criticizing Other Women". Oprah Magazine. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ Ison, Tara (Spring 2007). "A Heart, Beating | Journal". The Kenyon Review. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ Ison, Tara (May 20, 2012). "The Rumpus Sunday Essay: Flesh and Bones". The Rumpus.net. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ Ison, Tara (January 14, 2013). "Needles". TriQuarterly. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ "Fiction Book Review: Ball by Tara Ison". PublishersWeekly.com. September 7, 2015. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ "Fiction Book Review: A Child Out of Alcatraz by Tara Ison". www.publishersweekly.com. March 31, 1997. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ Alimurung, Gendy (March 14, 2007). "John Banville, Tara Ison, Dennis Cooper". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on August 30, 2020. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ Taylor, Elizabeth (January 30, 2015). "Editor's choice: 'Reeling Through Life' by Tara Ison". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead at IMDb
^ Armitage, Helen (July 16, 2020). "Why MTV Forced Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead's Title Change". ScreenRant. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
^ "Winners of the 2015 PEN Southwest Book Awards". PEN Texas. February 4, 2016. Retrieved March 21, 2018.