"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
How did she do that? Readers often ask this after reading an Ann Beattie story. Just when it seems as though not much is happening, boom! The story explodes. For example, in the final long paragraph … Read More
This line from a conversation between a seventy-seven year-old poet and an IRS agent about a poem by James Wright in the short story “Yancey” is vintage Ann Beattie: it’s an astute comment in an unusual situation by characters who come to each other from unanticipated angles, and who … Read More
When Ann Beattie met John Updike, he said “You figured out how to write an entirely different kind of story.” Her stories were “the” stories my English department discussed in the 1980s because they were so revolutionary. T. Coraghessan Boyle wrote in the New York Times, “Her stories are … Read More