Augusten Burroughs

Augusten Burroughs
Burroughs in 2008
Born	Christopher Robison October 23, 1965 (1965-10-23) (age 44) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Screenwriter, memoirist, essayist.
Nationality	American
Writing period	2000–present
Subjects	Memoir, humor
Notable work(s)	Running with Scissors (2002)
Official website

Augusten Xon Burroughs (born October 23, 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American writer known for his New York Times bestselling memoir Running with Scissors (2002), which spawned a film of the same name.

Life

Burroughs was born Christopher Robison, as the younger son to poet Margaret Robison and late John G. Robison, head of the philosophy department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is also the younger brother of memoirist John Elder Robison. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived most of his childhood in western Massachusetts. His parents divorced in 1978 following years of dysfunctional-issues, and he was placed in the care of his mother's psychiatrist in Northampton.

Burroughs dropped out of school after the sixth grade, and obtained a GED at age 17. He later enrolled at a community college near Amherst before moving to New York City. There he held a high-paying career in a Manhattan-based advertising company. In 1996, he sought treatment for alcoholism at a rehabilitation center in Minnesota before returning to Manhattan.

His books are published by St. Martin's Press and Picador. Some of his childhood experiences were chronicled in Running with Scissors (2002), which was later developed into a film.

Augusten Burroughs discusses his road to writing, sobriety and the Turcottes over dinner in the East Village.

Augusten Burroughs, New York City, 2007.

In addition to Scissors, Burroughs penned a second memoir, Dry (2003), about his experience during and after treatment for alcoholism. It was followed by two collections of memoir essays, Magical Thinking (2003) and Possible Side Effects (2006). His first novel, Sellevision (2000), is currently in production as a feature film.^[1][2]

Burroughs' writing pokes fun at subjects such as advertising, psychiatrists, religious families, and home shopping networks. It has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, House and Garden, BlackBook Magazine, New York, The Times, Bark, Attitude, and Out. Burroughs writes a monthly column for Details. Early in his career, he was a regular commentator on NPR's Morning Edition.

Burroughs has been profiled in People, The Guardian, and Entertainment Weekly, where he ranked 15 on the 2005 list of "The 25 Funniest People in America" and was named to the magazine's "It List".

Wikinews has related news: Augusten Burroughs on addiction, writing, his family and his new book

In 2005, Universal Studios and Red Wagon Productions bought the rights to a film based on a then-unreleased memoir about Burroughs' relationship with his father. The book, called A Wolf at the Table, was released on April 29, 2008.

Burroughs admitted to an audience member in Chicago at a book signing/discussion of You Better Not Cry, that he and Dennis had broken up. This preluded an admission that Dennis himself was a good writer and that the dogs they shared were now going back and forth between the each of them.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy

In August 2007, Burroughs and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, settled with the Turcotte family, who stated that they were the basis for the Finch family portrayed in the book. The Turcottes, who alleged that Running with Scissors was largely fictional^[4] and written in a sensational manner, sought damages of $2 million for invasion of privacy, defamation, and emotional distress. Burroughs defended his work as "entirely accurate", but agreed to call the work a "book" (instead of "memoir") in the author's note, to alter the acknowledgments page in future editions to recognize the Turcotte family's conflicting memories of described events, and express regret for "any unintentional harm" to the Turcotte family.^[5] Burroughs felt vindicated by the settlement. "I'm not at all sorry that I wrote [the book]. And you know, the suit settled-- it settled in my favor. I didn't change a word of the memoir, not one word of it. It's still a memoir, it's marketed as a memoir, [the Turcottes] agreed one hundred percent that it is a memoir."^[3]

Upon settling the Running With Scissors case in August 2007, Burroughs stated, "I consider this not only a personal victory but a victory for all memoirists. I still maintain that the book is an entirely accurate memoir, and that it was not fictionalized or sensationalized in any way. I did not embellish or invent elements. We had a very strong case because I had the truth on my side."^[6]

Bibliography

Contributions

• 2007 - Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's - John Elder Robison (ISBN 0-7393-5768-9) (foreword)

References

External links

• Official website
• Dr. Rodolph Turcotte's Site ('Dr Finch')
• Dr. John G. Robison (Burroughs' Father)
• Burroughs' mother - a poet and author
• The Memory Addict, a New York Magazine profile of Augusten Burroughs.
• Augusten Burroughs' Mother Speaks Out at NPR
• VIDEO Augusten Burroughs on his life and family - August 2008 on ABC FORA
• Ruthless with Scissors Vanity Fair article that describes interviews with Turcotte family.
• Washington Post article "Growing Up Truly Absurd."
• One hour interview with Victoria Lautman-Writers on the Record
• Augusten Burroughs reads A Wolf at the Table in New York