Wells Tower

Wells Tower (born April 14, 1973) is an American writer of short stories, non-fiction, feature films and television. In 2009 he published his first short story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) to much critical acclaim. His short fiction has also been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, Vice, Harper's Magazine, A Public Space, Fence and other periodicals. In 2022, he wrote the screenplay for the feature film Pain Hustlers, starring Emily Blunt and directed by David Yates.

Early life, education, and early career Tower was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but grew up in North Carolina. He played guitar in the punk band Hellbender for six years beginning his senior year of high school.

He received a B.A. in anthropology and sociology from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. After graduating from Wesleyan, he traveled around the United States doing odd jobs. He began his professional career when he convinced an editor at The Washington Post Magazine to publish an article about a carnival worker. and a Henfield Foundation Award.

Writing career

Farrar, Straus and Giroux published Tower's first short story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned in 2009. The book was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review by Edmund White and in the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani. It was also a finalist for The Story Prize. The short story from which the collection's title is taken is about a community of Vikings growing older.

In June 2010, Tower was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers. On June 10, 2010, he was presented with the Tenth Annual New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, a $10,000 prize for an American writer under 40.

His work was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2010. Since 2010, his nonfiction reporting has been featured in The Best American Sports Writing three times, for "Own Goal" (2011), originally published in Harper's Magazine and a finalist for a National Magazine Award for Profile Writing; "Welcome to the Far East Conference" (2012), originally published in GQ; and "Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant?" (2015), also originally published in GQ.

In 2014, Tower was a finalist for two National Magazine Awards in Essays and Criticism for "The Old Man at Burning Man" and in Fiction for "The Dance Contest."

On May 22, 2022, Netflix paid $50 million for global rights to the conspiracy film Pain Hustlers, written by Tower, directed by David Yates, and starring Emily Blunt. Tower's original screenplay was inspired by Evan Hughes’ nonfiction book The Hard Sell, which was published January 2022.

Tower’s unproduced screenwriting credits include The True American for director Kathryn Bigelow and Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures, and Framed for George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions and Netflix. His unproduced television writing credits include the dramatic series Paper for Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and HBO, and the series Mayor for Alec Baldwin and HBO.

Personal life

As of 2009, Tower divides his time between Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York.