Alec Wilkinson


Alec Wilkinson is a writer who has been on the staff of The New Yorker since 1980. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer he is among the "first rank of" contemporary American "literary journalists... of Naipaul, Norman Mailer and Agee."
He is the author of ten books: His most recent book is The Ice Balloon, the account of the Swedish visionary aeronaut S.A. Andree's attempt, in 1897, to discover the North Pole by flying to it in a hydrogen balloon.
Before Wilkinson was a writer, he spent a year as a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, which is the subject of Midnights, a Year with the Wellfleet Police, and before that he was a rock and roll musician, playing in a number of bands, including one in Berkeley, California with Tony Garnier, Bob Dylan's longtime bass player and bandleader.
Wilkinson began writing when he was twenty four, showing work to William Maxwell, his father's friend, who in addition to being a novelist and short-story writer, had for forty years been an editor of fiction at The New Yorker. They worked together closely for years. Maxwell died in July 2000. My Mentor describes their friendship.
Wilkinson's honors include a Lyndhurst Prize, a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and a Guggenheim fellowship. He is married, has a son, and lives in New York City. He is also the brother of Leland Wilkinson.

Publications