Paul Grondahl
Paul Grondahl is the Opalka Endowed Director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany. It is the nation's premier literary series and brings dozens of acclaimed authors to Albany each year for lectures, discussions and readings.
His previous books include Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma, also published by SUNY Press, and I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt.
Paul was a staff writer at the Albany Times Union from 1984 to 2017 -- and he continues to write a weekly column for the newspaper -- and has won numerous local, state, and national writing prizes, and his reporting took him from the Arctic to Antarctica; from Northern Ireland to Africa; from New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina and Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake in 2010; and across New York State, from Ground Zero on 9/11 to the Adirondack wilderness.
His in-depth newspaper projects on domestic violence, death and dying, mental illness in state prisons and the problems facing sub-Saharan Africa have won a number of local, state and national journalism awards.
His 2009 award-winning series "Poppy's Story: A Face of Addiction"
"I've written more than 8,000 stories and millions of words since I came to the Times Union in 1984, but none of my subjects got under my skin the way Poppy did.' Read story.
Grondahl's writing prizes include the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award for Feature Reporting; Scripps Howard National Journalism Award; New York Newspaper Publishers Association; two first place national feature writing prizes from The Society for Features Journalists; more than a dozen New York State Associated Press writing contest awards; and the Hearst Eagle Award, the highest recognition for a reporter in the Hearst Corp.
Grondahl was named Albany Author of the Year in 1997 by the Albany Public Library and Notable Author of the Year by the Guilderland Public Library and East Greenbush Public Library, both in 2004. He has been featured on C-SPAN's "About Books" and "Book TV."
Grondahl also has been selected several times in recent years as Best Local Journalist and Best Local Author in Metroland and Times Union readers' polls.
In addition, he received the 2006 Dr. James M. Bell Humanitarian Award from Parsons Child and Family Center. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including Smithsonian magazine, Newsday, The New York Times Book Review, the Houston Chronicle and other newspapers.
His second book, That Place Called Home, was excerpted in Reader's Digest and optioned to CBS, where it went into development as a made-for-TV movie but was never produced.
In addition to his own books, Grondahl has contributed introductions to A Collection of Poems by Lewis A. Swyer (The Swyer Foundation/Mount Ida Press, 2004) and Stepping Stones by Marty Silverman (Whitston Publishing Co., 2003).
Grondahl is a veteran teacher who leads highly regarded writing workshops with students ranging from elementary school to college. For the past decade, he has worked with high school students through the Minds-On workshop program at the Rensselaerville Institute and with high school seniors in the New Visions Public Communications program at the Times Union. He has taught as writer-in-residence at the Albany Academy and Albany Academy For Girls since 2005. He is also an adjunct professor at the University at Albany.
Grondahl received his bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, in 1981 and a master's degree in English literature from the University at Albany in 1984. He was honored in 2005 as a distinguished alumni in arts and letters from UAlbany.
Paul and his wife Mary live in Guilderland, NY.
With Samuel "Poppy" Baez in Ravena, NY, in 2011.
