Andrew Carroll (born September 27, 1969) is an American author, editor, playwright, public speaker, nonprofit executive, and historian.
Carroll is known as the editor of the New York Times best sellers Letters of a Nation, Behind the Lines, and War Letters, which later inspired the documentary of the same name. He is also known for seeking out and preserving war-related correspondences, distributing millions of free books to the general public throughout the United States and to U.S. troops abroad, and finding and bringing attention to unmarked but historically significant sites across America.
Early life
Carroll was adopted as an infant in Washington, D.C., and raised by Marea and Thomas Edmund Carroll, who helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Carroll attended Sidwell Friends High School and graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University in 1993, receiving his bachelor's degree in English literature. His older brother and only sibling, Christopher Carroll, is a professional photographer and filmmaker who was once a photo editor for the music magazine Spin. Christopher Carroll is also the co-editor with his wife, Liz Mechem, of the book Legends of Country.
In 1991, during his sophomore year at Columbia, Andrew Carroll wrote his first book, Volunteer USA: A Comprehensive Guide to Worthy Causes That Need You. Carroll followed it up in 1994 with Golden Opportunities: A Volunteer Guide for Americans Over 50.
The American Poetry & Literacy (APL) Project
In 1991, during his junior year at Columbia, Carroll was inspired by a lecture given at the Library of Congress by Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel Prize-winning author and Poet Laureate of the United States. Brodsky recommended that free poetry books should be widely disseminated to the American public. Carroll wrote to Brodsky offering to help start the initiative, and, after meeting in 1992, they launched what Carroll named: the American Poetry & Literacy (APL) Project, a nonprofit organization that would distribute free poetry books to the general public.
Carroll persuaded the Book-of-the-Month Club to donate to the APL Project thousands of copies of the book, Six American Poets: An Anthology, edited by Joel Conarroe, which features poems by Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, and William Carlos Williams. DoubleTree was the first hotel chain to agree to place the books in its rooms.
The APL Project expanded into giving away free books in schools, supermarkets, homeless shelters, senior centers, jury waiting rooms, and similar public venues. Carroll began working with Dover Publications, buying up large quantities of their inexpensive "thrift editions" and distributing specific books at certain times of the year (e.g., Great Love Poems for Valentines Day, funded by Lancôme, and The Raven and Other Favorite Poems by Edgar Allan Poe for Halloween).
After Joseph Brodsky died from a heart attack at the age of 55, Carroll went on a nationwide tour in Brodsky's honor and drove across the country and gave away 100,000 free books. The trip, which Carroll called The Great APLseed Giveaway began in April (National Poetry Month) 1998 and lasted for five weeks. The trip was sponsored by the Academy of American Poets and the Washington Apple Commission, and it was inspired by Johnny Appleseed's travels throughout the United States. DoubleTree Hotels provided Carroll with free lodging, and Ryder loaned Carroll a truck that he filled with books. Carroll drove from New York to California and handed out books at truck stops, hospitals, supermarkets, schools, bus and train stations, zoos, a White Castle hamburger restaurant in Chicago, and a casino and a 24-hour wedding chapel in Las Vegas. In 1998, Carroll convinced Amtrak to place thousands of copies of a poetry anthology, titled Songs for the Open Road: Poems of Travel and Adventure (Dover). In April 1999, Volkswagen agreed to put 40,000 poetry books provided by the APL Project in the glove compartment of its cars as they came off the assembly line. American Airlines placed 100,000 copies of Songs for the Open Road in the seat backs of their planes in April 2000. And the Target Corporation paid the APL Project for 300,000 books to give away to their customers. Before the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the International Olympic Committee contacted Carroll and requested that he edit a special anthology of international verse that would be given to athletes and spectators. Carroll created the book A World of Poetry (Dover) which was distributed throughout Salt Lake City during the Olympics.