John William Corrington
John William Corrington (October 1932 – November 1988) was an American movie and television writer, novelist, poet and lawyer. He received a B.A. degree from Centenary College of Louisiana in 1956 and his M.A. from Rice University in 1960, the year he took on his first teaching position in the English Department at Louisiana State University. While on leave from LSU, Corrington obtained his D.Phil. in 1965, from the University of Sussex and then moved to Loyola University New Orleans in 1966, as a Professor of English, where he also served as chair of the English Department. Corrington graduated from Tulane University Law School in 1975, joined a small New Orleans personal injury law firm, Plotkin and Bradley, and spent the next three years practicing law.
During this time Corrington published four books of poetry, Where We Are (1962), The Anatomy of Love (1964), Mr. Clean (1964) and Lines to the South (1965). With Miller Williams, Corrington edited Southern Writing in the Sixties: Fiction (1966) and Southern Writing in the Sixties: Poetry (1967). Corrington also published four books of short stories, The Lonesome Traveler (1968), The Actes and Monuments (1978), The Southern Reporter (1981) and All My Trials (1987) and four novels, And Wait for the Night (1964), The Upper Hand (1967), The Bombardier (1970) and Shad Sentell (1984). He won an Award in Fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts and had a story included in the O. Henry Award Stories (1976) and three in the Best American Short Stories series, (1973, 1976 and 1977).
With his wife, Joyce Hooper Corrington, Corrington wrote five screenplays, Von Richthofen and Brown (1969), The Omega Man (1970), Boxcar Bertha (1971), The Arena (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) and a television movie, Killer Bees (1974).
Corrington gave up the practice of law in 1978 and he and his wife, Joyce Hooper Corrington, became head writers for daytime serials. The Corringtons scripted Search for Tomorrow (1978-80), Another World (1980), Texas (1980 – 1981), General Hospital (1982), Capitol (1982 – 1983) and One Life to Live (1984). They also wrote and produced Superior Court, a syndicated series (1986 – 1989). Texas and Superior Court were each nominated twice for a Daytime Emmy Award.
During this time, the Corringtons also published So Small a Carnival (1986), A Project Named Desire (1987), A Civil Death (1987) and The White Zone (1990).
After Corrington’s death, his novella, “Decoration Day”, was adapted as a Hallmark Hall of Fame television special (1990), which was nominated for an Emmy and won a Christopher Award and a Golden Globe award. The Collected Stories of John William Corrington, edited by Joyce Hooper Corrington, was published in 1990, by the University of Missouri Press.
Centenary College of Louisiana inaugurated The John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence in 1991.
Joyce H. Corrington
Joyce Hooper Corrington, co-author with her late husband of the first four novels of the New Orleans Mystery series and solo author of the fifth, was born in Houston, TX, in 1936. She received a B.A. in 1958 and a B.S. in 1959 from Rice University, a M.S. from Louisiana State University in 1966, and a Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1968. She married John William Corrington in 1960, and they raised four children: Shelley, John, Robert and Thomas.
Joyce Corrington taught at Xavier University of Louisiana from 1968 to 1979. During that time she assisted her husband’s writing career by editing his manuscripts. When an opportunity to write scenarios occurred, the Corrintons formed a writing team that co-authored five movies. They continued writing as a team when they began working as head writers for daytime television. The time demanded for that work became so great that Joyce Corrington resigned her academic position and joined her husband in a full-time writing career.
When not occupied by their television work, the Corringtons began writing the New Orleans Mystery series. John William Corrington died in 1988 before the fourth, The White Zone, was completed. Joyce Corrington finished it and began writing the fifth novel, Fear of Dying. However, her work as a television writer and consultant delayed its publication. Joyce Corrington was a consultant for “Family Medical Center” (1989), a head writer for “Santa Barbara” (1989), and a consultant for NBC Daytime (1990-91). In 1990, as a co-producer for “Decoration Day” (which was based on one of John William Corrington’s novellas), Joyce Corrington shared in the Golden Globe Award and the Christopher Award it won and its Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Drama. She also edited a book of her late husband’s short fiction: The Collected Stories of John William Corrington (1990). She worked as a consultant for “Guiding Light” (1994), then as a consulting producer and co-executive producer of “The Real World” (1998-2007).
Now retired, Joyce Corrington lives in New Orleans where she is active in preparing the books written by herself and her late husband for re-publication as ebooks.