About BrightCity > Dave Hickey
Photograph by Geri Kodey
One of a handful of critics who “move markets,” Dave has written for most major American cultural publications. After dropping out of a PhD program in lit, he became a songwriter and played backup guitar for Marshall Chapman, among others. Then he opened an art gallery in NYC. Then he began writing about rock music for Rolling Stone. From there, he became one of the most influential critics in the world. He’s the author of countless magazine and journal articles and museum catalogues, plus a collection of short stories, Prior Convictions, and two collections of essays: Air Guitar (now in its eighth printing) and Invisible Dragons: Four Essays on Beauty (soon to be released in English and German). In 2002 – 2007 he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He holds an honorary degree from The Rhode Island School of Design. Last year he received a Peabody Award for his work on Ric Burns’ biographical documentary of Andy Warhol for the American Masters series on PBS. He is Schaeffer Professor of Modern Letters at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and credentialed in cool. Everything BrightCity Books does is influenced to some degree by Dave’s unique sense of style.