John Irving, the novelist and screenwriter, competed as a wrestler for twenty years. He was Kurt Vonnegut's student in the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where Mr. Irving later taught. In 1980, he won a National Book Award for his novel The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules, which also won a Maggie Award from Planned Parenthood-in recognition of exceptional achievement in the area of reproductive rights. In 2012 and 2013, Mr. Irving won two Lambda Literary Awards: for Bisexual Fiction, for In One Person; also a Bridge Builder Award, for writing empathetically about the LGBTQ community. His novels have been translated into more than thirty-five languages.

John Irving lives in Toronto. He is at work on a fifteenth novel-a ghost story, titled Darkness as a Bride-and he's in the process of adapting The World According to Garp as a television miniseries.