Randall Silvis


Randall Silvis is an American novelist, the author of short fiction and nonfiction, a playwright, a screenwriter, a poet, and a teacher of creative writing.

Life

Born in Madison Township, Clarion County, Pennsylvania, he was educated at Clarion University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In 2008, Silvis was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Indiana University of Pennsylvania for "a sustained career of distinguished literary achievement."

Awards

He won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in 1984 for his first book, selected by Joyce Carol Oates. He is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Award, plus six fellowship awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for his fiction, drama, and screenwriting. His novels An Occasional Hell and Two Days Gone were finalists for the Hammett Prize for literary excellence in crime writing from the International Association of Crime writers, and two of his short stories were nominated for a Pushcart Award. On Night's Shore, Two Days Gone, and Only the Rain were Amazon #1 Bestsellers in psychological suspense.
Other literary awards include:
• “Dog Days,” Finalist, The William Faulkner – Wisdom Creative Writing Competition 2024, poetry category
• “Hurt People,” First Runner-Up, The William Faulkner – Wisdom Creative Writing Competition 2024, novella category
• Honey, Semi-Finalist, The William Faulkner – Wisdom Creative Writing Competition 2024, novel category
• Hurricane, Semi-Finalist, The William Faulkner – Wisdom Creative Writing Competition 2024, novella category
• “On Bluebird Lane,” First Place, The 2024 Tennessee Williams Short Story Prize from the Key West Art & Historical Society
• “Wamsutta,” Finalist, Fiction Magazine 2024 short story contest
• Eyelands International Novel Contest 2023, finalist for A Long & Winding Road
• Hawthornden Fellowship, Hawthornden Castle, Midlothian, Scotland; dates of residency to be determined
• Pabst Endowed Chair for Master Artists, Atlantic Center for the Arts
• In a Town Called Mundomuerto, winner of the 2007 Omnidawn Publishing Fabulist Novel contest; named one of SfSite.com’s Ten Best Books of the Year
• Heart So Hungry named a Toronto Globe & Mail Best Book of the Year ·• James Thurber Writer-in-Residence, The Thurber House/The Ohio State University • Three-time winner, National Playwrights Showcase Award • Two-time winner, Pittsburgh New Works Play Festival • Mercyhurst College Writer-in-Residence           • Grand Prize, Screenwriting Showcase Awards, for The Algerian • The Best American Mystery Stories 2013, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for The Indian • Best of the Net Anthology 2013, for short story “Young Love”• "Wanted," First runner-up in the Cesar Egido Serrano Foundation Flash Fiction Contest • Finalist for the Anything But Hollywood Screenwriting Award • Finalist for the New Century Writers Screenplay Award • Finalist for the Beverly Hills Theater Guild/Julie Harris Playwright Award • Ruby Lloyd Apsey Playwriting Award from the University of Alabama at Birmingham • MacDowell Artists Colony Fellowship • Finalist for the New Century Writers Screenplay Award • Finalist for the Beverly Hills Theater Guild/Julie Harris Playwright Award • Ruby Lloyd Apsey Playwriting Award from the University of Alabama at Birmingham • MacDowell Artists Colony Fellowship
Books
  • The Luckiest Man in the World, short stories.
  • Excelsior, novel.
  • Under the Rainbow, novel.
  • An Occasional Hell, novel.
  • Dead Man Falling, novel 2nd edition
  • Mysticus, novel.
  • On Night's Shore, novel.
  • Disquiet Heart, novel. Also published as Doubly Dead, novel
  • North of Unknown: Mina Hubbard's Extraordinary Expedition into the Labrador Wilderness, nonfiction. Originally published as Heart So Hungry
  • In a Town Called Mundomuerto, novel
  • Hangtime, A Confession, novel
  • The Boy Who Shoots Crows, novel
  • Flying Fish, novel
  • Blood & Ink, e-book novel paperback edition
  • Two Days Gone, novel
  • Only the Rain, novel
  • Walking the Bones, novel
  • First the Thunder, novel
  • A Long Way Down, novel
  • Incident on Ten-Right Road, short story collection
  • No Woods So Dark as These, novel
  • My Secret Life, short story collection
  • From the Mirror, Reflections on Living, Writing, and Dying Well, memoir
  • Marguerite & the Moon Man, novel
  • When All Light Fails, novel
  • The Deepest Black, novel
  • Ten Easy Steps to Becoming a Writer, nonfiction
  • Finding Happiness in an Unhappy World, nonfiction
  • A Sunday Kind of Love, Vol. I The Poems"
  • A Sunday Kind of Love, Vol. II The Ballads
  • Marguerite & the Moon Man, novel
  • The Ruin of Us All, novel
  • There Was a Crooked Man, short stories
  • Write My Name in Dust, novel
  • Hurt People, short novel