Nic Pizzolatto is an American novelist, screenwriter, and producer of Italian descent best known
for writing and creating the TV show True Detective.
Early life Pizzolatto was born in New Orleans, Louisiana,
the son of Nick Pizzolatto Jr. and Sheila Pizzolatto.
He grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
He was educated at Louisiana State University and the University of Arkansas.
Career Fiction and short story writing
The author of two books, he taught fiction and literature at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Chicago, and DePauw University before leaving
academia in 2010.
His first novel, Galveston, was published by Scribner's in June, 2010.
It sold translations in France, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Catalonia,
Argentina, Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway, Bulgaria, Poland, Russia, Portugal
and Arab countries.
Television writing In 2011, he wrote two episodes for the first
season of the crime drama television series The Killing.
In 2012, he created an original television series called True Detective, which was sold
to HBO and completed shooting in June 2013, with Pizzolatto as executive producer, sole
writer, and showrunner.
It premiered in January 2014, and became the most watched freshman show in the network's
history.
The show was critically acclaimed and was so popular the finale crashed HBO's HBO Go
streaming service.
Pizzolatto listed several influences on the show's first season: philosophy books such
as Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Eugene Thacker's In The Dust
Of This Planet, Ray Brassier's Nihil Unbound, Jim Crawford's Confessions of an Antinatalist,
and David Benatar's Better Never To Have Been.
Pizzolatto also mentions horror authors Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, and
Ligotti.
In August 2014, an article alleged that Pizzolatto plagiarized Thomas Ligotti's book The Conspiracy
Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror, citing eleven examples that included word-for-word
quotations.
HBO and Pizzolatto made statements that they considered the allegations groundless, arguing
that philosophical ideas can never be plagiarized.
The issue remains currently unresolved.
Awards The first two short stories Pizzolatto submitted
sold simultaneously to The Atlantic.
His collection of short fiction Between Here and the Yellow Sea was long-listed for the
2006 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and named one of the top five fiction
debuts of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine.
Pizzolatto was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2004.
He received an honorable mention from the Pushcart Prize, and his story "Wanted Man"
is included in Best American Mystery Stories 2009.
Galveston won third prize in the 2010 Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, and was a finalist
for the 2010 Edgar Award for best first novel.
It won the 2011 Spur Award for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America.
In France, Galveston was awarded the Prix du Premier Roman étranger for 2011, by a
jury of literary critics.
Personal life Pizzolatto lives in California with his wife
and daughter.
Works or publications Pizzolatto, Nic. 2004.
"1987, The Races".
The Missouri Review.
27, no.
1: 83-93.
Pizzolatto, Nic. 2005.
"Haunted Earth".
The Iowa Review.
35, no.
2: 14-24.
Pizzolatto, Nic.
Between Here and the Yellow Sea: Stories.
San Francisco, CA: MacAdam/Cage, 2006.
ISBN 978-1-596-92168-9 Pizzolatto, Nic. 2009.
"Graves of Light".
Ploughshares. 35, no.
4: 140-156.
Pizzolatto, Nic.
Galveston: A Novel.
New York: Scribner, 2010.
ISBN 978-1-439-16664-2 True Detective, HBO.
January, 2014.
Notes and references
External links Official Website
Nic Pizzolatto at the Internet Movie Database