Former English Prof. & True Detective Creator Nic Pizzolatto Profiled in Vanity Fair

June 12, 2015

"When I first met Nic Pizzolatto, he was teaching creative writing at DePauw, a small liberal arts college in Indiana," begins a Vanity Fair profile. "He was a young professor at work on his first novel, seemingly just another member of the academic multitude, but there was something different about him, something edgy and strange you noticed right away." (photo, l-r: Pizzolatto and Vince Vaughn on the set of True Detective; by Lacey Terrell/HBO)

The magazine's lengthy profile of Pizzolatto -- who taught at DePauw from 2008-12, when he left for Hollywood and created the hit HBO series True Detective -- is written by Rich Cohen, a non-fiction writer who came to DePauw in 2008 as a guest of the Kelly Writers Series.

Recalling his first encounter with then-Professor Pizzolatto, Cohen writes, "He registered as bigger than his moderate size, powerful, with a wicked grin. He had an old-fashioned intensity. We spoke for a few minutes, then, a few minutes later, I forgot all about it. That was in 2008, two days before yesterday."

While on the DePauw faculty, Nic Pizzolatto's novel, Galveston, was published to critical acclaim. After leaving the University, Pizzolatto wrote two episodes of the AMC network TV series The Killing.  True Detective, now in its second season, is "brilliant and astonishingly successful," writes Cohen. "The critical acclaim for his show, its noir-ish mood and cult-like aura, the way its heroes seemed to shamble after some esoteric, Pynchon-esque truth had turned Nic into something more than just another TV writer or show-runner. He’d become an auteur, rich with wisdom, packed with answers. Stepping out of the trailer, he enfolded me in an all-encompassing hug. He was the same but different, having joined the upper echelon of the upper air, knighted by showbiz."

Access the complete article, which appears in Vanity Fair's July issue, at the magazine's website.

Also available is this previous story.

Source: Vanity Fair

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