Fiction
Chris White
Chris White is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose debut novel, The Life List of Adrian Mandrick, was published by Touchstone Books (Simon & Schuster) in 2018. It was called “stunningly honest” (Chicago Review of Books), “intense and poignant” (Library Journal starred review), “…with a life-affirming conclusion that reminds us that endangered species aren’t the only ones that need to change and adapt in order to survive” (The New York Times Book Review).
White’s plays have been produced nationally and internationally, and her play Rhythms won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play. She received an Award of Merit at the Women’s Independent Film Festival in Los Angeles for her feature-length screenplay Weasel in the Icebox; her screenplays have twice made first cut at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab; and her short film Mud Lotus was an official selection at U.S. festivals. White is a professor of English at DePauw University teaching creative writing and lives with her family near the town of Bainbridge, Indiana on Big Walnut Creek.
2020 Fiction Winner: The Life List of Adrian Mandrick
Adrian Mandrick seems to have his life in perfect order, with an excellent job in a Colorado hospital, a wife and two young children he loves deeply, and a serious passion for birding. His “life list” comprises 863 species correctly identified and cataloged—the third longest list in the North American region. But Adrian holds dark secrets from his past—secrets that threaten to consume him after he’s contacted by his estranged mother, and subsequently relapses into an addiction to pills. In the midst of his downward spiral, the legendary birder with the second-longest life list dies suddenly, and Adrian receives an anonymous tip that could propel him to the very top: the extremely rare Ivory-billed Woodpecker—the same bird he and his mother thought they spotted in the fondest memory from his childhood. Finally, stranded deep in the swamplands of Florida’s panhandle, Adrian will be forced to confront his tumultuous past and his present failures and question what is really important in his life.
Get to know Chris White
