Ward, an American editor, biographer and best known as primary screenwriter of Ken Burns’ documentaries, joins the New Hampshire Writers’ Project (NHWP) for a dialog with attendees.
Geoffrey C. Ward is kicking off the NHWP 2022 603 Conference on Saturday, June 4, 2022. Ward is the principal writer of the television mini-series the Civil War (1990) and has collaborated with the series co-producer Ken Burns on most of the documentaries he has made including Jazz, Baseball, The War, The Vietnam War and most recently Hemingway that premiered last year.
Rather than a traditional keynote speech, Ward will be engaging in a dialog with attendees at the virtual conference for approximately 90 minutes. “We believe Ward has such a treasure chest of experience that a dialog with the audience would be better suited than the customary keynote address format,” said Ron Stokes, NHWP Program Director. Ward, a highly successful multimedia and multicultural writer has informed all his work with an intriguing mix of influences and experiences.
He is the author or co-author of 19 books, including 10 companion books to the documentaries he has written. Ward has won seven Emmys, seven Christopher Awards, two Writers Guild Awards, and the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement in Writing from The Writers Guild of America, East.
“It was through the NH Writers’ Project (NHWP) connection with NHPBS on the Hemingway project that we came to know Geoffrey Ward,” said Masheri Chappelle, NHWP Board Chair. “He has such an accomplished body of work and so much information to share with all writers. We are thrilled to have him joining us for a conversation with the attendees of this year’s 603 Conference.”
Ward was the founding editor of Audience Magazine (1970-1973) and the editor of American Heritage Magazine (1977-1982). He wrote a monthly column for American Heritage called “The Life and Times.” His second book about Franklin D. Roosevelt, A First-class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times award for best biography, the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Ward’s films with Burns have earned him five of his Emmy Awards. He has won an additional two Emmys for The Kennedys (1992), and TR, The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (1996). His script for the documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, won the Writers Guild of America Award in 2005, and the accompanying book won the 2006 William Hill Sports Book of the Year and the Anisfield-Wolf Award for best biography.
Ward spent some of his boyhood years in India and writes frequently about India and Indian wildlife. Living in India also provided Ward with insight on two of his recurring themes: America and race. “I was a white teenager living in a brown country. If you live abroad, you can’t do the kind of easy generalizing about other people that kids do because they don’t know any better…it doesn’t mean you don’t see yourself as American, but it does give you a sense of context and something to measure us against.”
In consideration of the health of all, the conference will be virtual. Visit the NHWP 603 Conference pages for more information.
