Spanogle, Joshua 1970(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1970. Education: Graduated from Yale University; attending Stanford University Medical School.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Palo Alto, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Delacorte Press, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. E-mail—spanogle@stanford.edu.

CAREER:

Physician in training; writer; former researcher, University of Pennsylvania, Center for Bioethics, Philadelphia, PA.

WRITINGS:

Isolation Ward (medical thriller), Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joshua Spanogle, a medical student at Stanford University, has applied his interest and expertise in the medical field to his writing. He had attempted to write a medical thriller following his graduation from Yale University, prior to entering medical school, but was unhappy with the result. His first published medical thriller, Isolation Ward, was completed during the summer between his first and second years of medical school, supported in part by a grant from Stanford. He revised it over a period of eighteen months, stealing time between classes and lab work. The protagonist of Isolation Ward, Dr. Nate McCormick, works for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, a conscious choice on Spanogle's part as he realized that the position would provide his hero with more reason to investigate an incident and therefore aid in building a suspenseful thriller. In an interview with Bookreporter.com, Spanogle explained his character's origins: "McCormick is not modeled on any particular real-world person. He is, however, a composite of different people I know in medicine and outside of medicine." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly remarked that Spanogle "delivered a real jolt of excitement with this debut novel," and a contributor to Kirkus Reviews commented that "readers of this engrossing and intellectually wrought first novel will happily await Spanogle's next." Spanogle plans to continue writing medical thrillers. He said in an interview in Time Online: "The intellectual work and the contact with people in medicine is a nice balance to the solitude of writing."

When asked about his writing, Spanogle told CA: "Stories have been in my life for a long time. My parents read to me from a young age. I wrote a tenpage fantasy ‘book’ in fifth grade, and skits through high school. In college, I took fiction and playwriting courses and learned the beginnings of craft. After college, I had a couple of short stories published in small literary journals. Through this time, I collected a file of rejection letters as thick as a fist.

"As for working on a novel, I needed a base of expertise on which to build. Acceptance to and matriculation in medical school gave me that foundation. I chose to work in genre fiction for a couple of reasons. First, for me, some of the most exciting writing comes out of genre fiction. Second, the medical thriller format provided structure, which allowed me to direct my attention to character, motivation, and theme. Most of all, though, I like reading thrillers.

"Michael Crichton's early work (A Case of Need, The Andromeda Strain) is amazing. Nelson DeMille is one of the most literary writers working in genre fiction today, I believe. (The Gold Coast captures voice and place better than most books in any genre). I owe a lot to Robin Cook, especially to Coma. Ian McEwan is amazing. Raymond Carver was my first major influence and I read him obsessively. Lee Child seems to be channeling Chandler and Hammett better than any other modern author I know of. Then, of course, there are the big guys themselves: Chandler and Hammett.

"I plant myself behind the computer whenever I get the chance—weekends, holidays, any time I'm not in the hospital. When I have a block of free time, I treat writing as my job: in the library at 8 a.m., stay until 5 p.m. or so.

"The most surprising thing I've learned as a writer is just how much work it takes. It's the hardest job I've done, and I've had quite a few jobs. There's also the degree of concentration required. It's one thing to be involved in a task where stimuli is constant, where people are asking questions and demanding answers, where interaction with others is the norm. But in writing, it's just you and your brain. It's very easy to lose hours looking out the window.

"Most importantly, I want my books to rivet and entertain. Secondarily, I want to do as much teaching through my fiction as possible, without bogging down the story. Not everyone has the opportunity to be involved in medicine. I want to take readers to that place, teach them about that world and teach them some of that world's language: science."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Entertainment Weekly, March 10, 2006, Gilbert Cruz, Tina Jordan, "Mystery 101: Killer Reads," p. 71.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2006, review of Isolation Ward, p. 14.

Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2006, review of Isolation Ward, p. 36.

Washington Post, March 13, 2006, Patrick Anderson, "The Prognosis Is Good," p. C08.

ONLINE

Agony Online, http://trashotron.com/ (April 26, 2006), Rick Kleffel, review of Isolation Ward.

Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com/ (April 26, 2006), review of Isolation Ward.

BookPage.com, http://www.bookpage.com/ (April 26, 2006), Paul Goat Allen, "Racing to Stop a Deadly Epidemic."

Bookreporter.com, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (March 3, 2006), interview with Joshua Spanogle; (April 26, 2006), Joe Hartlaub, review of Isolation Ward.

Sun-Sentinel Online (Ft. Lauderdale, FL), http://www. sun-sentinel.com/ (April 2, 2006), Oline H. Cogdill, "Science Adds Spice to Tale of Bioterror."

Time Online, http://www.time.com/ (March 28, 2006), interview with Joshua Spanogle.