William Zinsser

William Zinsser, a writer, editor, and teacher, is a fourth-generation New Yorker born in 1922. His 18 books, which range in subjects from music to baseball to American travel, include several widely read books about writing. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, first published in 1976, has sold almost 1.5 million copies to three generations of writers, editors, journalists, teachers, and students.

Writing to Learn uses examples of good writing in science, medicine, and technology to demonstrate that writing is a powerful component of learning in every subject. Writing Places is a memoir recalling the enjoyment and gratitude of the places where William Zinsser has done his writing and his teaching, and the unusual people he encountered on that life journey.

Mr. Zinsser began his career in 1946 at the New York Herald Tribune, where he was a writer, editor, and critic. In 1959 he left to become a freelance writer and has since written regularly for leading magazines. From 1968 to 1972, he was a columnist for Life. During the 1970s, he was at Yale, where, besides teaching nonfiction writing and humor writing, he was a master of Branford College. In 1979 he returned to New York and was a senior editor at the Book-of-the-Month Club until 1987 when he went back to freelance writing. He teaches at the New School and at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is an adviser on writing to schools, colleges, and other organizations. He holds honorary degrees from Wesleyan University, Rollins College, and the University of Southern India and is a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library.

William Zinsser's other books include Mitchell & Ruff, a profile of jazz musicians Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff; American Places, a pilgrimage to 16 iconic American sites; Spring Training, about the spring training camp of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1988; and Easy to Remember: The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs; and he is the Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir. A jazz pianist and songwriter, he wrote a musical revue, What's the Point, which was performed off-Broadway in 2003. Mr. Zinsser lives in his hometown with his wife, the educator and historian Caroline Zinsser. They have two children, Amy Zinsser, a business executive, and John Zinsser, a painter, and teacher.