Heidi W. Durrow

Heidi W. Durrow (born June 21, 1969) is an American writer, author of best-seller[1] The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, and the winner of the 2008 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially-Engaged Fiction.[2][3]

Heidi Wedel Durrow
Born (1969-06-21) June 21, 1969
NationalityAmerican
Alma materStanford University
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Yale Law School

Life and education

Durrow, the daughter of a Danish immigrant and an African-American Air Force man, grew up in part overseas in Turkey, Germany, and Denmark.[4] In 1980 her family settled in Portland, Oregon,[5] where she attended Jefferson High School. She majored in English at Stanford University and wrote a weekly column for the Stanford Daily, graduating in 1991 with Honors. She continued her education at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and received a M.S. in 1992. She then attended Yale Law School and received her J.D. in 1995.

Career

Durrow's career began at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City, where she worked as a corporate litigator on antitrust, commercial contracts, and employment discrimination cases. She left Cravath in 1997 to pursue a literary career.

Durrow worked as a consultant to the National Basketball Association and National Football League as a Life Skills trainer from 2000 to 2006.[6]

Durrow was a host of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat focused on issues of being racially and culturally mixed.[7]

In 2008 Durrow became a founder of the now defunct Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival.[8] The Festival—which ran from 2008 to 2012—celebrated stories of the Mixed experience including stories about biracial identity, transracially adopted families, and interracial and intercultural relationships and friendships. The Festival presented films, readings, workshops, a family event, and the largest West Coast "((Loving Day celebration))".

Durrow created a new festival called the Mixed Remixed Festival which premiered June 14, 2014.[9]

Durrow was named a Power 100 Leader by Ebony Magazine in 2010 and was nominated for a 2011 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Debut.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky was published February 16, 2010 by Algonquin Books.

The book won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (2008)[10] and was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Debut Author (2010)[11] and Carnegie Medal (2011).

In 2022, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky was listed among 52 books banned by the Alpine School District following the implementation of Utah law H.B. 374, “Sensitive Materials In Schools."[12] Forty-two percent of removed books “feature LBGTQ+ characters and or themes.”[13][12] Many of the books were removed because they were considered to contain pornographic material according to the new law, which defines porn using the following criteria:

  • "The average person" would find that the material, on the whole, "appeals to prurient interest in sex"[14]
  • The material "is patently offensive in the description or depiction of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, sadomasochistic abuse, or excretion"[14]
  • The material, on the whole, "does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."[14]

Awards and honors

Durrow has received multiple fellowships and grants for her writing, including the following:

Awards for Durrow's writing
Year Title Award Result Ref.
2004 Chapter One Fiction Contest Winner
2004 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition Winner
2008 The Girl Who Fell From the Sky Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change Winner
2010 Goodreads Choice Award for Debut Author Nominee [11]
2011 Carnegie Medal Nominee

References
  1. The book is described as a best seller by New Yorker magazine, here, accessed December 9th 2014.
  2. From the Heidi Durrow author website, accessible here, accessed December 9th, 2014.
  3. Details on the PEN/Bellwether Prize are available here, accessed December 9th 2014.
  4. Lise Funderburg, Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity (Morrow, 1995), pp. 351-59.
  5. Cited in New Yorker magazine article from 2011, accessible here, accessed December 9th 2014.
  6. Erica Boeke and Chris De Benedetti, Gameface: The Kick-Ass Guide for Women Who Love Pro Sports (Virgin, 2008), pp. 31-35.
  7. “Obama Raises Profile of Mixed race Americans”, San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 2008, Tyche Hendricks.
  8. “Japanese American National Museum to Host 2nd Annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival,” Nichi Bei Times, May 21–27, 2009, p. 10.
  9. "About Mixed Remixed Festival".
  10. "PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction Winners". PEN America. 2021-03-01. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  11. "The Girl Who Fell From the Sky". Goodreads. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  12. "Ban on 52 Books in Largest Utah School District is a Worrisome Escalation of Censorship". PEN America. 2022-08-01. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
  13. "School District Removes 52 Books From Libraries". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
  14. Mullahy, Brian (2022-07-28). "Alpine School District pulls dozens of books from school library shelves". KUTV. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
  15. "Heidi Durrow". The Lois Roth Endowment. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
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