Gurkind is the founder of the literary magazine Creative Nonfiction and the author or editor of over a dozen books. He started the first ever MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh. Currently, he is the Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes and professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.
Gutkind was born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and educated at the University of Pittsburgh. Formally a motorcyclist, a medical insider, a sailor, a college professor, a mid-life father and a literary whipping boy, Lee Gutkind was an unlikely success, as he explained in his previous book, Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather. His upcoming book, entitled, Truckin’ with Sam: A Father and Son, The Mick and The Dyl, Rockin’ and Rollin’, On the Road, is a follow-up to his memoir Forever Fat. His immersion experiences into the motorcycle subculture, the organ transplant milieu, baseball umpires and in other heretofore un-mined worlds about which he has written books, along with the literary techniques he has developed, has helped to create a new paradigm for writing about the world ... the “literature of reality” that is creative nonfiction.
Gutkind is founder and editor of the journal Creative Nonfiction, the first and largest literary journal devoted to creative nonfiction. He is also editor of Best Creative Nonfiction, an annual anthology of creative nonfiction. Gutkind is author of Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction. Gutkind has written 15 books, and edited 18 collections and volumes. In celebration of his impact on the genre, In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, was published in 2004 by W.W. Norton. Book List called In Fact “an electrifying anthology . . . an exciting and defining creative nonfiction primer.”
Vanity Fair Magazine proclaimed Gutkind “the Godfather” behind the creative nonfiction movement, and Harper’s Magazine noted that he is “the leading figure behind the creative nonfiction movement.”
Lee Gutkind’s books have been praised for being simultaneously personal and universally informative. His award-winning Many Sleepless Nights, an inside chronicle of the world of organ transplantation, has been reprinted in Italian, Korean and Japanese editions. An Unspoken Art, a profile of veterinary medicine, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. His book about major league umpires, The Best Seat In Baseball, But You Have to Stand!, was called by USA Today "unprecedented, revealing, startling and poignant."
Gutkind frequently crosses genres as a writer, editor and reporter. He is a published novelist, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and served as a consulting editor at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. teaching narrative techniques to reporters, producers and editors on the Science Desk. Also as the former director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, Lee Gutkind pioneered the teaching of creative nonfiction, conducting workshops and presenting readings throughout the United States, Europe, Australia and Israel.
Gutkind founded the creative nonfiction program and MFA degree at the University of Pittsburgh, the first in the world. He helped found the low residency MFA program in creative nonfiction at Goucher College, and was director of the Mid-Atlantic Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference at Goucher for 11 years. He was the director and founder of the 412 Creative Nonfiction Literary Festival for four years, a citywide literary event that provides professional development to students and city residents and fosters the strength of the local writing community. Gutkind also served as the Virginia G. Piper Distinguished Writer in Residence at Arizona State University in 2007-2008.
Lee Gutkind's list of honorary achievements include: The Steve Allan Individual Award, by United Mental Health, Inc; Chancellor's Award for Public Service; Meritorious Service Award by American Council on Transplantation; Howard Blakeslee Award by the American Heart Association for "outstanding journalism; Golden Eagle Award by CINE, for the film, A Place Just Right; Recipient of National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. In 2004, Gutkind was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Chatham College.
