Kirn graduated with an A.B. in English from Princeton University in 1983 after completing a 22-page-long senior thesis entitled "Entangling Breaths (Poems)."[2] Following that, he obtained a second undergraduate degree in English Literature at Oxford University, where he was a Keasbey Memorial Foundation Scholar.[3]
Writing
Kirn has published a collection of short stories and several novels. These include Thumbsucker (1999), which was made into a 2005 film featuring Keanu Reeves and Vince Vaughn. Kirn's 2001 novel, Up in the Air, has been characterized as a literary chronotope relating to the genre of road narratives.[4] It was made into a 2009 film directed by Jason Reitman. The film adaptation of Up In The Air, which starred George Clooney and Anna Kendrick, was a commercial success and went on to receive critical acclaim as well as numerous nominations and awards.
In 2005, Kirn took over blogger Andrew Sullivan's publication while Sullivan was on vacation. He also wrote The Unbinding, an Internet-only novel that was published in Slate magazine.[5]
In 2023, Kirn and David Samuels launched County Highway, a magazine about America in the form of a nineteenth-century newspaper, and as America's only newspaper. Donald Rosenfeld is the publisher.
^Hansen, Julie. "Space, time, and plane travel in Walter Kirn's novel up in the air." Nordic Journal of English Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, Sept. 2012, pp. 18+