John Sayles

John Sayles works as a fiction writer, screenwriter, actor and feature film director.  His novel Union Dues (1978) was nominated for the National Book Award and the National Critics’ Circle Award.  He has written over a hundred screenplays and was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.  He has directed 18 feature films, with another, I Passed This Way, currently in progress.  His films Matewan and Lone Star, as well as his previous novel A Moment in the Sun, are often used for instruction in History and American Studies courses.  Yellow Earth is his fifth novel.