James Wolcott

James Wolcott (born December 10, 1952) is an American journalist, known for his critique of contemporary media. Wolcott was the cultural critic for Vanity Fair and has contributed to The New Yorker. He had his own blog on Vanity Fairs main site, which was awarded a Webby Award in 2007.

Background and education

Wolcott was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in a suburban setting. He attended Maryland's Frostburg State College for two years. From there, he moved to New York City, to work at The Village Voice, first in the circulation department answering phone complaints, then as a receptionist. He is married to Laura Jacobs, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He began practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique in 2007.

Career

Since arriving in New York, Wolcott has been a columnist on media and pop culture for such publications as Esquire, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and New York. He was taken on at Vanity Fair by Leo Lerman, then the magazine's editor.

Wolcott's novel, The Catsitters, was published in 2001. In 2004, he published Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants, a critique of right-wing media in the United States.

His memoir Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York was published on October 25, 2011.

Awards and honors

2014 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for Critical Mass