Draft:Russ Madison

  • Comment: Oh, actually, I missed the added info on his play "The Box" -- if there's a second source about that play, such as a review of the performance, that would work! ~ le 🌸 valyn (talk) 21:19, 14 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: It looks like some more reviews have been added of the first book, Victory Among the Insane. But we already knew that this book meets our criteria to have a book article. For an author article, we need reviews of the other works, to show there's more than one wiki-eligible book. It now seems likely to me that this should be an refactored as an article about Victory Among the Insane, with a section about the other and his other works, rather than an author bio. ~ le 🌸 valyn (talk) 21:15, 14 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: The most typical and straightforward way for an author to meet our criteria to have an article is to cite reviews showing they have published 2+ works that individually meet our criteria to have a book article. In this case, I was able to find such reviews for his first book, but couldn't find anything suitable for the later works. (Note that the brief one-sentence mentions from Variety and the New York Times are not in-depth enough to qualify as "non-trivial".) If you can add 2 reviews of any of his other works, this article could be published. Or, if that's the only book of his that meets the criteria, this could be converted into an article on the book which contains a section about the author -- you can see an example of that structure at Unexpected Destinations. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:02, 4 December 2025 (UTC)


Russ Madison is an author from Woodbridge, CT. His first novel, Victory Among the Insane, from Grove Press, was published in 1969.[1][2] The United Press International noted it's success "as gallows humor on the rotting American dream."[3][4][5]

Madison's first occupations were manual labor positions.[6] He worked as a carpenter and as an orchard farm worker before entering the advertising industry.[7] At the time of his first novel's publication, he was the creative director at Madison Maier, Inc., in Hamden, CT.[8] He served as senior vice president/creative director of the advertising agency Langeler-Mason (now Mason, Inc.) before eventually opening Lone Wolf Advertising in Woodbridge, CT, along with his Art Director wife Gi.[9][10][11][12]

Madison primarily writes on paper towels fed into an electric typewriter.[9] According to Madison, he began the practice in the 1960s since it was less expensive than paper,[13] and has maintained the habit because of its feel: "I was a laborer for lots of years, and this is simply like manual labor, it looks like an assembly line, and it just works for me."[6] He has also used cement bags as paper.[6]

In 1997, he received a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation and spent a month writing a novel about Norman Mailer at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass.[6] There, he wrote 600 feet of paper towel prose and met Mailer, commenting, "He seems to like [the book] so far. I've never thoroughly interviewed him, but he's nuts himself, so it fits right in."[6]

He contributed articles such as "American Advertising 'Creativity': The Great Fraud of the 1980s" to the publication Back Stage.[14] He has edited the literary magazine Fat Abbot and has contributed to Black Journal and Yale Literary Magazine, as well as the literary magazine Evergreen Review.[15][16]

Madison was awarded the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.[9] He won first prize in the Milford Fine Arts Council's annual poetry contest in 2008 with his poem "Prayer to Software."[17] His play "The Box" was one of three plays chosen from 450 for Colorado's annual Drama Theatre Festival in 1992.[18] He received first prize from Connecticut Writer for poetry and has also received first prize awards from Hartford and Boston Advertising Clubs.[16] His archives at Boston University include correspondence with Mailer and with Donald Hall.[9]

Select Bibliography

Novels

  • Victory Among the Insane (1969) OCLC 21453[19][20][21][22][23]
  • The man who watched trash : a novel of the environment (2001) OCLC 54207498
  • Chapter 11 (2002) OCLC 54207500[13]

Poems

References

  1. ^ "CHATTER". Variety. 256 (9): 68. Oct 15, 1969. ProQuest 962984655 – via ProQuest. Grove Press will publish two more first novels this month: "Victory Among the Insane" by Russ Madison, a contemporary satire set in New Hampshire, and "Great Heads" by Kenneth Tindall, which deals with young Americans living in Europe.
  2. ^ "New Books". The New York TImes. Oct 17, 1969. p. 44. ProQuest 118528451. Humorous story of a small town post-master's efforts to increase tourism.
  3. ^ Mullen, Don (Oct 22, 1969). "Off the bookshelf". Ukiah Daily Journal. p. 15.
  4. ^ Mullen, Don (Oct 19, 1969). "Insane, Funny Novel". The Palm Beach Post. p. 115.
  5. ^ Mullen, Don (Oct 23, 1969). "Times Books". The Times. p. 33.
  6. ^ a b c d e Jones, Sarah (Nov 3, 1997). "Just like manual labor". Adweek, New England Edition; Boston. 34 (44): 5. ProQuest 215417792 – via ABI/INFORM Collection.
  7. ^ Erickson, James (1970-04-05). "Books". The News Tribune. p. 111. Retrieved 2025-12-03.
  8. ^ "Hamden Ad Man Cracks Grove Press for Novel". Connecticut Post. 1969-11-09. p. 100. Retrieved 2025-12-03.
  9. ^ a b c d "BU Expands Woodbridge Novelist's Literary Collection". www.woodbridgetownnews.com. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  10. ^ "Connecticut bank selects lone wolf advertising". ADWEEK New England Edition. 38 (51): 6. 17 December 2001 – via Gale Academic OneFile.
  11. ^ "Mason & Madison Rebrands, Restructures". ADWEEK New England Edition. 11 Feb 2005 – via Gale Academic OneFile.
  12. ^ Madison, Russ (Jun 24, 1983). "CLIO AWARDS SECTION--Follow Up: The Low Budget Syndrome". Back Stage. 24 (25): 26 – via Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive.
  13. ^ a b Nudd, Tim (Mar 4, 2002). "Chapter and verse". Adweek, Eastern Edition; New York. 43 (10): 42. ProQuest 212683040 – via ABI/INFORM Collection.
  14. ^ Madison, Russ (Jun 1, 1984). "American Advertising 'Creativity': The Great Fraud of the 1980s". Back Stage. 25 (33): 38B, 40B. ProQuest 1014545959 – via Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive.
  15. ^ "Index 1968 - 1984". Evergreen Review. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  16. ^ a b "Russ Madison". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. 2009.
  17. ^ "Woodbridge Writer Earns National Acclaim". Business Times. Vol. 30, no. 8. Aug 2008. p. 32.
  18. ^ "Playwright Madison's opus chosen for Colorado festival". The Bulletin. March 12, 1992. p. 5.
  19. ^ Mullen, Don (1969-10-25). "New Books". Turlock Journal. p. 10. Retrieved 2025-12-03.
  20. ^ "Author Tries Too Hard". The Lexington Herald. 1970-03-15. p. 82. Retrieved 2025-12-03.
  21. ^ "'Victory Among Insane'; allegory, humor?". The Boston Globe. 1969-12-18. p. 37. Retrieved 2025-12-03.
  22. ^ "A Look at Some of the New Books". Independent. Oct 16, 1969. p. 114.
  23. ^ "NOVELS IN BRIEF". The Globe and Mail. Feb 14, 1970. pp. A15. ProQuest 1241903487.

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