Roy Blount, Jr.

Roy Blount, Jr. at the 2007 Texas Book Festival.

Roy Alton Blount, Jr. (born October 4, 1941; IPA: blʌnt) is an American writer. Best known as a humorist, Blount is also a reporter, actor, and musician with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock band composed entirely of writers. He is also president of the Authors Guild.

Blount was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He attended Ponce de Leon Elementary School and graduated from Decatur High School in Decatur, Georgia, where he was class president and editor of the school newspaper, The Scribbler. He received the Grantland Rice Journalism Scholarship to study journalism at Vanderbilt University where he distinguished himself and was Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude. He went on to Harvard University where he received his M.A degree.

Recently he narrated The Main Stream, a PBS documentary about the Mississippi River. As of 2009 he is featured regularly as a panelist on the NPR news/comedy quiz show, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me. On the show, Blount is known for outrageous dead-pan comments which frequently reduce the panel to tears of laughter, such as his discussion of "E.J. Junior Senior Junior High School". He has also been a recurring guest on A Prairie Home Companion.

On 24 February 2009 Blount wrote an op-ed article for The New York Times^[1] explaining the Authors Guild's position demanding extra royalties from the text-to-speech functionality of the Amazon Kindle 2. To criticism from the American National Federation of the Blind he replied that free audio availability of copyright works to the blind is provided for automatically by American copyright laws. To the criticism that the Kindle's functionality is equivalent to parents reading aloud to their children, he said that, "the Authors Guild does not expect royalties from anybody doing non-commercial performances of 'Goodnight Moon.' If parents want to send their children off to bed with the voice of Kindle 2, however, it’s another matter."

Partial bibliography

• Robert E. Lee (2003, Penguin Lives series)
• I Am the Cat, Don't Forget That: Feline Expressions (2004)
• Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans (2005)
• Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South (2007)
• Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof: Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory (2008). Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10369-0

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Roy Blount, Jr.

• Official site
• Roy Blount Jr. at the Internet Movie Database

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