Biography
Andrew Carroll is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author, historian, (LETTERS OF A NATION, WAR LETTERS, and BEHIND THE LINES), playwright (IF ALL THE SKY WERE PAPER, LINES OF FIRE, and LETTER PERFECT), and public speaker. Working with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Andrew edited, on a pro bono basis, the anthology: OPERATION HOMECOMING: IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, AND THE HOME FRONT, IN THE WORDS OF U.S. TROOPS AND THEIR FAMILIES. The anthology inspired the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary, also called OPERATION HOMECOMING. Andrew wrote the booklet A GUIDE FOR WRITERS as part of the NEA’s “Operation Homecoming” program, that can be—and has been—used by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder counselors, as well as by individual troops and veterans interested in writing about their experiences. Andrew has led PTSD group sessions at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Bethesda Naval Hospital, the St. Louis VA Medical Center, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. Andrew is the founding director of the Center for American War Letters at Chapman University, and he has traveled to all 50 U.S. states and more than 40 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan (twice), and Ukraine, to seek out the greatest war letters ever written. IF ALL THE SKY WERE PAPER was inspired by both his travels and the correspondences he found. The play has been performed throughout the country, in high schools and colleges and community theatres, as well as in major venues like the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and it has starred such actors as Laura Dern, Common, Annette Bening, Gary Cole, Ed Asner, and Mary Steenburgen. A magna cum laude graduate of Columbia University, Andrew has been given the “Chairman’s Medal," the highest award given by the chairman of the NEA. Andrew is also the founder of AmericansforUkraine.org, which works to promote humanitarian aid for Ukrainians. Andrew’s life and all of his work to save irreplaceable correspondences will be represented in the feature-length documentary WAR UNFOLDING.
