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Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard is one of America’s  most gifted and prolific writers, credited with 45 books, multiple screenplays, and a hit TV series “Justified”, based on his popular character U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens.  His earliest published novels in the 1950′s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers.

Leonard became interested in writing in 1935, after reading a serialization of “All Quiet on the Western Front” in the Detroit Times. Touched by the story, he wrote a play based on the novel for his fifth-grade classmates, using the desks as “No-Man’s-Land.” In high school he wrote a story or two for the school paper but spent most of his time reading. After graduating in 1943 Leonard joined the navy and served with a Seabee unit in the South Pacific. He left the service in 1946 and enrolled at the University of Detroit. At the university he began writing again, entering short story contests and placing third in one of them. He graduated in 1950 with a major in English and philosophy.

In 1949, while still in college, Leonard joined the Campbell-Ewald advertising agency. He also began writing in earnest during this period. He had his first success in 1951 when Argosy magazine published his short story “Trail of the Apache.” Other stories—all westerns—followed in such publications as “The Bounty Hunters,” followed by four more over the next eight years. Between 1951 and 1961 he published 30 short stories, five novels, and made two sales to the movies. When his novel “Hombre” was chosen as “One of the Best Westerns of All Time” by the Western Writers of America in 1961, Leonard finally felt confident enough to quit the advertising agency and devote all of his time to writing.

As the market for westerns began to dry up, however, Leonard found himself writing educational films for Encyclopaedia Britannica, industrial films for corporations and advertising and sales material. He switched from westerns to crime with the publication of “The Big Bounce.” During the 1970s and 1980s he developed a devoted following with his novels “Fifty-two Pickup,” “City Primeval,” “Stick” and “LaBrava.” When “Glitz” was published in 1985, it became Leonard’s ‘breakout’ bestseller; he began to receive long-overdue attention, including a Newsweek cover story. Each of his novels since then has been a national bestseller as well as a critical success.

Three of Leonard’s books have been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America: “The Switch” was nominated for Best Original Paperback Novel of 1978; “Split Images” for Best Novel of 1981; and “LaBrava”, which won for Best Novel in 1983. “Maximum Bob” was also awarded the first Annual International Association of Crime Writers’ North American Hammett Prize in 1991. In 1992 the Mystery Writers gave Leonard the Grand Master Award, which “is presented only to individuals who, by a lifetime of achievement, have proved themselves preeminent in the craft of the mystery and dedicated to the advancement of the genre.”

Success has followed Leonard to Hollywood as well. Released in October 1995, “Get Shorty,” starred John Travolta and was an immediate critical and commercial success; the same is true of “Out of Sight,” which starred George Clooney and was released in June 1998. Award-winning director Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”) directed “Jackie Brown,” a film based on Leonard’s novel “Rum Punch,” in December 1997. Leonard’s 34th novel, “Cuba Libre,” is a story of high adventure, history, romance and nefarious undertakings in Cuba. The film rights to the novel, which was released in February 1998, were bought by Joel and Ethan Coen of “Fargo” fame. “Maximum Bob” was an ABC-TV miniseries starring Beau Bridges.

Leonard’s newest novel, “Djibouti,” was published in 2010.

Leonard appeared with the National Writers Series on two occasions – in Fall 2009, and as part of the National Cherry Festival Kick-Off event, “National Writers Series Presents Elmore Leonard.”

For more information, www.elmoreleonard.com