James Alan McPherson Jr. was born in Savannah, Georgia on September 16, 1943. He received a bachelor's degree from Morris Brown College in 1965, a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a master of fine arts degree from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.
While still in law school, he won a contest sponsored by The Atlantic Monthly magazine for a semi-autobiographical short story called Gold Coast. His first short story collection, Hue and Cry, was published in 1969. His next anthology, Elbow Room, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1978. He also wrote memoirs including Going Up to Atlanta and Crabcakes. In 1981, he was among the first 21 people who received what became known as genius awards from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He taught at the University of Virginia and the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He died from complications of pneumonia on July 27, 2016 at the age of 72.
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