David Simon, executive producer, writer and creator of HBO's The Wire, will present a lecture at Hamilton College, on Thursday, Oct. 2, at 4:10 p.m. in the Chapel. The lecture, titled "The Audacity of Despair," is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Dean of Faculty and hosted by the American Studies program.
Simon is a Baltimore-based author, journalist and writer-producer of television specializing in criminal justice and urban issues. Most recently he was executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning drama series The Wire. The series debuted in 2002 and completed its fifth and final season in March. Each season of The Wire focused on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They included the drug trade, the port, the city bureaucracy, the school system and the print news media.
After graduating from the University of Maryland Simon went to work as a police reporter at the Baltimore Sun. In 1988, after four years on the crime beat, he took a leave of absence from the newspaper to write Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.
Published in 1991, the Edgar Award-winning account of a year inside the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit became the basis for NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, which was broadcast from 1993 to 1999. Simon worked as a writer, and later as a producer on the award-winning drama.
In 1993, Simon took a second leave from the Baltimore Sun to research and write, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Published in 1997 and co-authored with Edward Burns, the true account of life in a West Baltimore community dominated by an open-air drug market was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times.
Simon then co-wrote and produced The Corner as a six-hour miniseries for HBO. That production, which aired in 2000, won an Emmy® as the year's best miniseries. Simon and David Mills also won the Emmy® for best writing in a movie or miniseries. For his writing on NBC's Homicide, Simon has won the WGA Award for best writing in an episodic drama, as well as the Humanitas Award in the same category.
Having left the Baltimore Sun in 1995, Simon continues to work as a freelance journalist and author, writing for publications such as the Washington Post, the New Republic and Details magazine.
Simon is a Baltimore-based author, journalist and writer-producer of television specializing in criminal justice and urban issues. Most recently he was executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning drama series The Wire. The series debuted in 2002 and completed its fifth and final season in March. Each season of The Wire focused on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They included the drug trade, the port, the city bureaucracy, the school system and the print news media.
After graduating from the University of Maryland Simon went to work as a police reporter at the Baltimore Sun. In 1988, after four years on the crime beat, he took a leave of absence from the newspaper to write Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.
Published in 1991, the Edgar Award-winning account of a year inside the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit became the basis for NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, which was broadcast from 1993 to 1999. Simon worked as a writer, and later as a producer on the award-winning drama.
In 1993, Simon took a second leave from the Baltimore Sun to research and write, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Published in 1997 and co-authored with Edward Burns, the true account of life in a West Baltimore community dominated by an open-air drug market was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times.
Simon then co-wrote and produced The Corner as a six-hour miniseries for HBO. That production, which aired in 2000, won an Emmy® as the year's best miniseries. Simon and David Mills also won the Emmy® for best writing in a movie or miniseries. For his writing on NBC's Homicide, Simon has won the WGA Award for best writing in an episodic drama, as well as the Humanitas Award in the same category.
Having left the Baltimore Sun in 1995, Simon continues to work as a freelance journalist and author, writing for publications such as the Washington Post, the New Republic and Details magazine.
