William Zinsser

A self-described sheltered child, William Zinsser was born in New York City, where his family has lived and managed a shellac factory since the early 1800s. He attended the prestigious Deerfield Academy prep school in Massachusetts and then studied at Princeton University. During World War II, he was conscripted into the U.S. Army and fought in North Africa and Italy. In the war, Zinsser’s commanding officer noticed his penchant for writing and assigned him to write a history of their unit. This made a lasting impact on Zinsser, and after the war, he got his dream job working for his favorite newspaper, the New York Herald Tribune. He wrote for the paper’s education section, then helped edit its Sunday review, then took charge of its drama section, became its movie critic, and wrote various editorials until 1959, when he quit and became a freelancer. During the 1960s, he wrote seven books and numerous columns for magazines like Life, Sports Illustrated, and The New York Times Magazine. During this period, some of his favorite projects were travel articles and commissioned books for the New York Public Library and the Book-of-the-Month Club. He started teaching nonfiction writing at Indiana University in 1968, then went on to teach and edit the alumni magazine at Yale University during the 1970s. During this period, he also served as the master of Yale’s Branford College and wrote his biggest hit, On Writing Well, which earned him speaking gigs all around the United States. During the 1980s, he oversaw the Book-of-the-Month Club, continued writing articles for major national magazines, and published several of his most important nonfiction books, like Mitchell & Ruff and Spring Training. From the 1990s onward, he dedicated himself to writing, mentoring young writers, and playing jazz piano around New York. Zinsser died in 2015 at the age of 92.