Sarah Vowell

Sarah Jane Vowell (born December 27, 1969) is an American historian, writer, journalist, radio personality, social commentator, and actress. She has written seven nonfiction books on American history and culture. Vowell was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996 to 2008, where she produced commentaries and documentaries. She was the voice of Violet Parr in the 2004 animated film The Incredibles and its 2018 sequel.

Early life and education Sarah Vowell was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on December 27, 1969. She has Swedish, Scottish and Cherokee ancestry. She states that she is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her family moved to Bozeman, Montana when she was eleven. She has a fraternal twin sister, Amy. Vowell graduated from Bozeman High School. She earned a BA from Montana State University in 1993 in Modern Languages and Literature, and an MA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999.

Career Writing Vowell's articles have been published in The Village Voice, Esquire, Spin Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, SF Weekly, and The Washington Post. She has been a regular contributor to the online magazine Salon, and was one of the original contributors to McSweeney's, participating in many of the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'''s readings and shows.

Vowell's first book, Radio On: A Listener's Diary (1997), which featured her year-long diary of listening to the radio in 1995, caught the attention of This American Life host Ira Glass, and it led to Vowell becoming a frequent contributor to the show. Thereafter, segments on the show became the subjects for many of her subsequent published essays. Vowell's first essay collection was Take the Cannoli (2000), which was followed by The Partly Cloudy Patriot (2002).

In 2005, Vowell served as a guest columnist for The New York Times during several weeks in July, briefly filling in for Maureen Dowd. She again served as a guest columnist in February 2006. Her book Assassination Vacation (2005) describes a road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield and William McKinley. Vowell's book, The Wordy Shipmates (2008), analyzes the settlement of the New England Puritans in America and their contributions to American history. Also in 2008, Vowell's essay about Montana appeared in the book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.

Vowell wrote Unfamiliar Fishes (2011), which discusses the Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the Newlands Resolution. In her Los Angeles Times review, Susan Salter Reynolds wrote that Vowell's "cleverness is gorgeously American: She collects facts and stores them like a nervous chipmunk, digesting them only for the sake of argument." Allegra Goodman, writing in The Washington Post, describes the work as "a big gulp of a book, printed as an extended essay... Lacking section or chapter breaks, Vowell's quirky history lurches from one anecdote to the next. These are often entertaining, but in the aggregate they begin to sound the same...", adding that "Vowell tells a good tale" with "shrewd observations", but that "the narrative wears thin where casual turns cute and cute threatens to turn glib."

Her most recent book is Lafayette in the Somewhat United States (2015), an account of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who became George Washington's trusted officer and friend, and afterward an American celebrity. NPR reviewer Colin Dwyer wrote, "It's awfully refreshing to see Vowell bring our founders down from their lofty pedestals. In her telling, they're just men again, not the gods we've long since made of them."

Public appearances, lectures, and oral histories

Vowell has appeared on television shows including Nightline, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Vowell provided commentary in Robert Wuhl's 2005 Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl HBO specials.

In 2021, Vowell participated as an interviewer in the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention Delegates oral histories .

Voice and acting work Vowell provided the voice of Violet Parr, a shy teenager, in the 2004 Pixar animated film The Incredibles, and returned to her role for the film's sequel, Incredibles 2, in 2018. She voiced the character in related video games, and for Disney on Ice presentations. Director Brad Bird heard Vowell on This American Life, "Guns", (in which she and her father fire a homemade cannon) and determined that Vowell's voice fit the character. Pixar made a test animation for Violet using audio from that sequence, which was included on the DVD of The Incredibles. Vowell wrote and was featured in a documentary included on the same DVD, entitled "Vowellett – An Essay by Sarah Vowell", in which she reflects on the difference between being an author of history books on assassinated presidents and voicing the superhero Violet, and on what the role meant to her nephew.

Vowell featured prominently in the 2002 documentary about the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, entitled Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, and she appeared with band members John Linnell and John Flansburgh in the DVD commentary for the movie. She provided commentary for the April 2006 episode "Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley," one of ten in the History Channel miniseries 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.

In September 2006, Vowell appeared as a minor character in the ABC drama Six Degrees. She appeared in an episode of HBO's Bored to Death, as an interviewer in a bar, and in 2010, appeared briefly in the film Please Give, as a shopper. Vowell appeared on The Daily Show as a Senior Historical Context Correspondent.

Personal life Vowell writes that she has a small amount of Cherokee Nation ancestry (about 1/8 on her mother's side and 1/16 on her father's side). She retraced the path of the forced removal of the Cherokee from the southeastern United States to Oklahoma, known as the Trail of Tears, with her twin sister Amy. In 1998, This American Life chronicled her story, devoting the entire hour to her work. Vowell spent many vacations with her sister and nephew visiting historical sites. As a child she attended church three times a week and seldom travelled. Vowell does not drive and is an avid public transit user.

She has described herself as a "culturally Christian atheist".

Vowell lives in Manhattan, New York. She is on the advisory board of 826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for students aged 6–18 in Brooklyn.

Selected published works 1997 – Radio On: A Listener's Diary. 2000 – Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World. 2002 – The Partly Cloudy Patriot. 2005 – Assassination Vacation. 2008 – The Wordy Shipmates. 2011 – Unfamiliar Fishes. 2015 – Lafayette in the Somewhat United States''.

Filmography

Film Year Title Role Notes 1987 End of the Line Diner Waitress Uncredited 1999 Man in the Sand Herself Documentary 2002 Gigantic Herself 2004 The Incredibles Violet Parr Voice 2010 Please Give Shopper 2011 Hit So Hard Herself Documentary 2013 A.C.O.D. Lorraine 2018 Incredibles 2 Violet Parr Voice

Television Year Title Role Notes 2006–2007 Six Degrees Edie 2 episodes 2006 The Colbert Report Herself 1 episode 2009 Bored to Death Journalist 2010 Lafayette: The Lost Hero Herself Documentary 2011 Jimmy Kimmel Live! Special guest 2011, 2013, 2015 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 2011 Last Call with Carson Daly The Tavis Smiley Show 2015 Conan 2016 Well Read V 2018 The Who Was? Show Episode: "George Washington & Marco Polo" 2022 Dicktown Various voices Episode: "The Mystery of Meg's Extremely Violent and Inappropriate Musical" 2024 LEGO Pixar: BrickToons Violet Parr (voice) Episode: "Pizza Night"

Video games Year Title Role Notes 2004 The Incredibles Violet Parr 2004 The Incredibles: When Danger Calls 2012 Kinect Rush: A Disney-Pixar Adventure 2013 Disney Infinity Credited as Sara Vowell 2014 Disney Infinity 2.0 2015 Disney Infinity 3.0 2018 Lego The Incredibles 2024 Disney Speedstorm

Short film Year Title Role Notes 2005 Vowellet – An Essay by Sarah Vowell Herself, writer, archive footage Included as a bonus feature to The Incredibles on home media; details Vowell's voice work during the film while also writing Assassination Vacation and how her This American Life writing/narration earned her the role of Violet.

Theme parks Year Title Role Notes 2018 Incredicoaster Violet Parr Voice