Paul Hendrickson

Paul Hendrickson (born April 29, 1944) is an American author, journalist, and professor.

He is a senior lecturer and member of the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is a former member of the writing staff at the Washington Post.

He has been honored with two writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Lyndhurst Foundation, and Alicia Patterson Foundation.

Paul Joseph Hendrickson was born on April 29, 1944, in Fresno, California.

He is the son of Joseph Paul and Rita Bernice (née Kyne) Hendrickson.

He was raised in Kankakee and Wheaton, Illinois.

From age 14 to 21, Hendrickson attended Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity Catholic seminary in Alabama, intent on preparing for the priesthood.

A memoir, the work presented his early life studying for the priesthood in Alabama during the 1950s and 1960s.

He attended St. Louis University, earning a Bachelor's degree in English in 1967.

He also earned a Master's degree in 1968 in English, with a concentration in American literature from Pennsylvania State University.

Following his 1968 graduation from Pennsylvania State University, Hendrickson began his journalism career, serving as a publicist, writer, and producer on staff at WPSX-TV in University Park, Pennsylvania.

On September 13, 1969, Hendrickson married Sunday Barbagallo.

In 1971, he joined the reporting team of the travel magazine Holiday, based out of Indianapolis, Indiana.

After two years, he signed on as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press broadsheet newspaper of Detroit, Michigan.

The marriage ended in divorce in February 1974.

In 1974, he began reporting for the National Observer in Washington, D.C., remaining on staff through 1977, when the publication ceased.

In 1977, Hendrickson joined the staff of The Washington Post as a feature writer and reporter for the newspaper's Style section, covering culture and the arts.

On March 10, 1979, he married Cecilia Moffatt, a nurse.

Together, they have two grown sons, John and Matthew.

Hendrickson and his wife live in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

In October 1982, Playboy Magazine printed an excerpt of the book entitled "Fear of Faggotry: Growing Up in the Seminary".

The magazine named the book the best nonfiction work of the year.

His first book, Seminary: A Search, was published in 1983.

His second book, Looking For The Light: The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott (1992), gained critical acclaim.

It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War was published by Alfred A. Knopf.

The New York Times referred to the book as "a work that approaches a Shakespearean tragedy".

Steve Weinberg of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that it was "meticulously reported, exquisitely written".

In 1998, he joined the faculty of the university, where he is now a senior lecturer.

He remained with the organization through 2001.

When he was working on staff at The Washington Post, Hendrickson began facilitating nonfiction writing workshops at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2003, he received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy.

In 2005, the university honored him with the Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

In 2009, he served as a visiting professor at Duke University, where he taught documentary practice.

He also taught American studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

, Hendrickson has written five nonfiction books, including a memoir and biographies about Marion Post Wolcott, Robert McNamara, and Ernest Hemingway.

In 2012, he was honored with a second Heartland Prize for Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961.

It was also a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

In 2019, Hendrickson published a book about Frank Lloyd Wright, supported through a fellowship with the NEA, entitled Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright.