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Stephen McCauley

American writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ3498607 ↗
Source-derived summary

Stephen McCauley (born June 26, 1955) is an American author. He has written eight novels, including Insignificant Others. His best known novel is The Object of My Affection, which was made into a film starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd.

Life and career

He was raised outside Boston and went to public schools for his education. As an undergraduate, he attended the University of Vermont and then spent a year in France at the University of Nice.

McCauley worked a series of unrelated jobs including teaching yoga, working at a hotel, a kindergarten, and manning an ice cream stand. He worked as a travel agent for many years before moving to Brooklyn in the 1980s. There he attended adult learning centers to take some writing classes before enrolling in Columbia University's writing program. The writer Stephen Koch gave him the idea to begin work on his first novel.

His stories, articles and reviews have appeared in Gay Community News, Bay Windows, the Boston Phoenix, the New York Times Book Review, Vogue, House & Garden, Details, Vanity Fair, Harper's, and Travel and Leisure, among others.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Stephen McCauley” as american writer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-06-26. The account is most persuasive where Stephen, McCauley and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american writer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3498607. VIAF identifies the subject as 79066013. The Library of Congress control number is n85308701. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Stephen McCauley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Stephen McCauley primary sources, Stephen McCauley archive and Stephen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Stephen McCauley”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Stephen McCauley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.