James Franco

James Franco is an actor, director, writer, and visual artist. He is the author of two works of fiction, Palo Alto and Actors Anonymous, and two books of collage of memoir, snapshots, poems, and artwork, A California Childhood and Hollywood Dreaming. His poetry has appeared in a chapbook, Strongest of the Litter, and the book, Directing Herbert White. His writing has also been published in Esquire, the Huffington Post, McSweeney’s, N+1, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has received MFAs in fiction from Brooklyn College and Columbia, an MFA in film from New York University, an MFA in art from Rhode Island School of Design, and an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College.

Franco’s film appearances include Milk, Pineapple Express, This is the End, Spring Breakers, Oz, and 127 Hours, which earned him an Academy Award nomination. He portrayed poets Allen Ginsberg in the film Howl, C.K. Williams in The Color of Time, and Hart Crane in The Broken Tower, a film Franco adapted and directed. He has also adapted many poems into films that he has directed, including short films based on “Herbert White” by Frank Bidart, the collection Black Dog, Red Dog by Stephen Dobyns, “The Clerk’s Tale” by Spencer Reece, and “The Feast of Stephen” by Anthony Hecht. Franco has also adapted to film the novels As I Lay Dying, and Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck, The Long Home by William Gay, and Zeroville by Steve Erickson.

He lives in New York and Los Angeles.