Biography

Dan Wakefield (born May 21, 1932) is an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter.His best-selling novels, Going All the Way (1970) and Starting Over (1973), were made into feature films.

He wrote the screenplay for Going All the Way, which starred Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz and Rose McGowan.He created the NBC prime time television series James at 15 (1977–78) and was story editor of the series (1977).

His other notable works include Island in the City: The World of Spanish Harlem (1959), a pioneering journalistic account of a Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York, and the memoir New York in the Fifties (2001), produced as a documentary film by Betsy Blankenbaker. His memoir, Returning: A Spiritual Journey (1988), was called by Bill Moyers "one of the most important memoirs of the spirit I have ever read". He edited and wrote the Introduction to Kurt Vonnegut Letters (2012). Wakefield received The Bernard DeVoto Fellowship at The Bread Loaf Writer Conference in 1958, a Nieman Fellowship in Journalism (1963–64) and a Rockefeller Grant in Writing, 1968.

Wakefield retired as writer in residence at Florida International University (1995–2009), where he received The Faculty Award for Mentorship. He moved back to his home town of Indianapolis in 2011.