Dillard, Annie

Annie Dillard was born Meta Ann Doak on April 30, 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She attended Hollins College near Roanoke, Virginia, and studied creative writing and religion. In her sophomore year, she married her creative writing professor, Richard Dillard, who had a strong influence on her writing. Dillard finished her undergraduate degree in English literature and completed a Masters in Fine Arts from Hollins, in 1968.

After graduate school, Dillard spent her time writing poetry and short stories, some of which she published, and painting and drawing. Interested in the region around her suburban home, filled with forests, mountains, creek, and animals, she wrote about her experiences and observations of area in journals that would become her first book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek . Published in 1974, the book won Dillard the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 at the age of 29. Dillard divorced her first husband and she moved to Washington state for the position of writer in residence at Western Washington University. She married professor Gary Clevidence and had a daughter. Dillard published Holy the Firm, the memoir An American Chilhood, and two novels, The Living and The Maytress . She was a professor in the department of English at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and now lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina and Wythe County, Virginia with her third husband, professor and writer Robert Richardson.

From the guide to the Annie Dillard papers, 1955-2000, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)