Background

Paul Grondahl was born on June 9, 1959.

Education

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.

Career

Paul Grondahl has a long career as a journalist and writer. He began a new job in February 2017 as a 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. Grondahl also is a journalist and author. Grondahl was a staff writer at the Albany Times Union since 1984, where his assignments have taken 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 also across New York State, from Ground Zero on 9/11 to the Adirondack wilderness.

Paul Grondahl is an experienced writer. His first book, Mayor Erastus Corning is a biography of the man who set a record for tenure in American political history, having been elected mayor of Albany eleven times to serve forty-two years. The author reports that Corning was a charming, philandering, brilliant man who led the powerful, all-inclusive Democratic Party that was formed in 1921, and which was comprised of members of both the working class and the wealthy. Grondahl conducted more than two hundred interviews and searched archival sources in writing the story of Corning, for whom New York State named its tallest building north of New York City. The author also documents Corning's family background, his years at Yale University, his political ties, war service, interactions with Rockefeller, Dewey, and the media, his retreat to Maine, and his ultimate decline and death.

Paul's 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 and "Stepping Stones" by Marty Silverman.

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 in the Africana Studies Department at the University at Albany.

Grondahl currently lives and works in Guilderland, New York.

Achievements

• Paul Grondahl is an experienced and award-winning writer with more than thirty years of experience. His books, such as Mayor Erastus Corning and That Place Called Home, were written with a great effort and received very well.

Works

More photos

• book

  • I Rose Like a Rocket

    (A biographical analysis of Theodore Roosevelt's political...)

    2004
  • Mayor Corning

    (Erastus Corning 2nd was elected mayor of Albany eleven ti...)

    1997
  • That Place Called Home 2000
  • Now is the Time 2006

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "Paul is an exceptional journalist with respect to New York State politics. Also, his biographies of former Albany Mayor Erastus Corning and Theodore Roosevelt were poignant, compelling and impossible to put down." - Robert Ellman
  
  "Grondahl makes a significant contribution to the Roosevelt literature." - William D. Pederson, critic.

Connections

Paul Grondahl is married to Mary Grondahl. They have two children - Sam and Caroline Grondahl.

Wife:

Mary Grondahl

Son:

Sam Grondahl

Daughter:

Caroline Grondahl

colleague:

Andy Rooney

colleague:

Bill Kennedy

References

• Contemporary Authors vol. 233