Prof. Chuck Kinder, Inspiration For Michael Chabon’s ‘Wonder Boys’, Dead At 76

“For years, Mr. Kinder led the creative writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, where he became renowned for his generosity as a teacher and as a [party] host” as well as for a huge novel he just couldn’t finish. “Chabon, who was Mr. Kinder’s student in the 1980s, used him as the model for Grady Tripp, the narrator and central figure of the 1995 novel Wonder Boys.” – The Washington Post