Colin, Chris 1975(?)-

views updated

COLIN, Chris 1975(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1975.

ADDRESSES:

Home—San Francisco, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. E-mail—chris@chriscolin.com.

CAREER:

Journalist and writer. Salon.com, editor and feature writer, 1999-2002.

WRITINGS:

What Really Happened to the Class of '93: Start-Ups, Dropouts, and Other Navigations through an Untidy Decade, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including New York Times Book Review and McSweeney's Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS:

Journalist and author Chris Colin received his secondary education at the Thomas Jefferson School of Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, graduating in 1993. As his ten-year class reunion approached, Colin decided to do more than just catch up with old friends: He decided to interview his former classmates about their lives and how events after 1993 affected them personally and professionally. As he told an interviewer for the Christian Science Monitor, "I wanted to go back and figure out not just what happened to the Class of '93, but who we were in the first place." What emerges in his book What Really Happened to the Class of '93: Start-Ups, Dropouts, and Other Navigations through an Untidy Decade is a series of portraits of young people who have deeply examined their lives and relationships against a backdrop of what they consider to be troubling national events.

In his book Colin does not concentrate solely upon those with whom he shared friendships at Thomas Jefferson High. He visits a former girlfriend and discovers that she still bears him some ill will. He reconnects with a former enemy who has become a thoughtful and successful individual. Colin also explores the ways in which the overachieving students he knew in the early 1990s dealt with the erosion of their expectations and detours in their career courses. In Booklist, Kristine Huntley called What Really Happened to the Class of '93 "an intriguing portrait of a diverse group of people." School Library Journal correspondent Susan H. Woodcock likewise noted: "Colin's writing skills make for compelling stories and vivid portraits." Woodcock felt that post-high school graduates "will recognize themselves" in the profiles of Colin's classmates. Allyssa Lee in Entertainment Weekly called the book "smart and engaging," concluding that Colin's "voyeurism is hard to resist," while a Publishers Weekly writer called Colin "a skilled writer" who "makes these profiles of unknown people surprisingly interesting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2004, Kristine Huntley, review of What Really Happened to the Class of '93: Start-Ups, Dropouts, and Other Navigations through an Untidy Decade, p. 1528.

Christian Science Monitor, June 1, 2004, Brian Libby, "Ten Years Later, Classmates Are Easier to Like."

Entertainment Weekly, May 14, 2004, Allyssa Lee, review of What Really Happened to the Class of '93, p. 75.

Newsday, May 14, 2004, Elaine Blair, "Class Notes."

Psychology Today, January-February, 2004, Carlin Flora, "The Mind's Eye," p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, April 5, 2004, review of What Really Happened to the Class of '93, p. 53.

School Library Journal, July, 2004, Susan H. Woodcock, review of What Really Happened to the Class of '93, p. 133.