The author and essayist E. L. Doctorow passed away Tuesday at the age of 84 from complications related to lung cancer. In a career that spanned 50 years, he became one of the most important and widely-read writers of the 20th century. He wrote two collections of short stories, a play, and numerous essays, but he is most remembered for his 10 novels, including Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and The March.
He won the National Book Critics Circle Award three times, he won the PEN Faulkner award twice, and he was also a National Book Award winner. President Clinton gave him the National Humanities Medal in 1998, and in 2013, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the Gold Medal for fiction. In November 2006, Mr. Doctorow was in Baltimore to receive a Lifetime Literary Achievement award from the Enoch Pratt Library. He had just published a book called Creationists, a fascinating collection of essays about writers, and the art of writing. Tom sat down with E. L. Doctorow back then to have a conversation about that book.
