Robert Kirsch papers, 1979.

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Robert Kirsch papers, 1979.

In 1979 Robert Kirsch, literary critic for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a two-part article on the state of book reviewing in America. As part of this project, Kirsch surveyed the literary world, and collected responses from 41 authors. These letters are collected here, and include such authors as Saul Bellow, Ray Bradbury, Charles Bukowski, Lillian Hellmann, Larry McMurtry, J.D. Salinger and many others.

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Himes, Chester B., 1909-1984

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Chester Bomar Himes was born in Jefferson City, Missouri on July 29, 1909 to Estelle Bomar Himes and Joseph Sandy Himes. In 1926 he enrolled at Ohio State University to study medicine, but was expelled in 1928 and shortly afterward was arrested, convicted for armed robbery, and sentenced to a twenty-five year term in prison. Himes served only part of that sentence, from 1928 to 1936, at the Ohio State Penetentiary in Columbus, during which time he became a published and somewhat well-known write...

Heller, Joseph, 1940-

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Author Joseph Heller was born and raised in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, N.Y. He served in the Air Force in World War II, and was educated at NYU, Columbia, and as a Fullbright Scholar at Oxford. He worked as an English instructor at Penn State University and became a copy writer for several New York ad agencies. His first novel, the highly-regarded World War II black comedy Catch-22, became a phenomenon by anticipating key themes in the social unrest that characterized the 1960s; the s...

Jong, Erica

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Feminist novelist, poet, and essayist Erica Jong has published 20 books, including eight novels, six volumes of poetry, six books of non-fiction, and numerous articles in magazines and newspapers. From the description of How to Save Your Own Life : a novel : manuscript, 1977. (University of Delaware Library). WorldCat record id: 496807049 Erica Jong is an American novelist, poet, and social writer. Her landmark first novel, Fear of flying, became infamous for frank and expli...

Miller, Arthur J., 1943-

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Bukowski, Charles J.

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Charles Bukowski was born on August 16, 1920 in Andernach, Germany, the son of a US soldier and German woman. His family immigrated to the United States in 1922 and settled in Los Angeles, where Bukowski spent most of his life. After a brief marriage to Barbara Frye, the rich publisher of a small poetry magazine, Bukowski began in 1958 twelve years of work as a Post Office clerk. In 1955 Bukowski began writing poetry, publishing volumes almost annually. His first collection, Flower, Fist, and Be...

McElroy, Joseph, 1930-

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Abbey, Edward, 1927-1989

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American author. From the description of Edward Abbey's Vox Clamantis in Deserto: Some Notes from a Secret Journal production records, 1988-1989. (University of Arizona). WorldCat record id: 41557904 Edward Abbey was born on January 29, 1927. He grew up in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. His first glimpse of the American Southwest was in 1944 when he hitchhiked to Seattle and then to Arizona. After serving as a U.S. Army rifleman in Italy from 1945-1946, he enrolled...

Creeley, Robert, 1926-2005

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Sponsored by Stanford University, the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, the Stanford Humanities Center, the Stanford Library, and the Library Associates. From the description of A symposium on his poetry and his place in American letters : recording, 2005 Nov. 5. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754864090 David Shaff was at Yale at this time; he wrote and edited poetry. From the description of Letters to David O. Schaff, 1962-1965. (Unknown). WorldC...

Matthiessen, Peter

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Saroyan, William, 1908-1981

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Frances Ring was Editor at WESTWAYS in Los Angeles. From the description of Letters (and manuscripts and photos) to Frances Ring, 1970-1980. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754863419 Goldie Weisberg was a fellow writer whose work Saroyan had discovered in a literary magzine. Saroyan initiated the correspondence, which focuses on their respective reading, writing, and work lives. From the description of Correspondence with Goldie Weisberg, 1930-1938. (Unknown). Wor...

Godwin, Gail

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Author Gail Godwin was born in Birmingham, Ala.; grew up in Asheville, N.C.; was graduated in 1959 from the University of North Carolina with a B.A. in journalism; and studied at the Iowa Writers Workshop, earning an M.A. in creative writing and Ph. D. in English literature. She has published ten novels and taught in various colleges and universities. Godwin lives in Woodstock, N.Y. From the description of Gail Godwin papers, 1913-2006. WorldCat record id: 49338168 ...

Barth, John Simmons

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Reed, Ishmael, 1938-....

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Writer Ishmael Reed was born on February 22, 1938 in Chattanooga, Tennessee to Thelma Virginia Coleman, a homemaker and salesclerk, and Henry Lenoir, a fundraiser for the YMCA. In 1942, he moved to Buffalo, New York with his mother and stepfather, Bennie Stephen Reed, an autoworker. Reed graduated from East High School in 1956, enrolled in night classes at Millard Fillmore College, and later transferred to SUNY Buffalo.In 1961, Reed began writing forEmpire State Weekly, during which time he inte...

McMurtry, Larry

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Larry McMurtry, novelist, essayist, and screenwriter, was born in 1936 in Wichita Falls, Texas. He spent his early years on his father's ranch outside of Archer City. He graduated from the University of North Texas in 1958 and from a graduate program at Rice University in 1960. That same year he was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His first novel Horseman, Pass By won the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters in 1962. Hud, a movie based on this novel, received numerou...

Malamud, Bernard

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Novelist and short story writer Bernard Malamud was born in 1914 and raised in Brooklyn. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and his heritage would play a key role in his development as a writer. He was also influenced by growing up during the the Depression and by 19th-century writers such as Hawthorne and Melville. His bittersweet, tragicomic stories often merge reality and fantasy, and explore the human condition through themes of suffering and moral obligation. His work has won many ...

Bellow, Saul

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Gass, William H., 1924-

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American essayist and novelist William H. Gass was a professor of philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, when he wrote this letter. In 1979 Gass was named David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University, from which he is now emeritus. He was also the Director of International Writers Center from 1990 to 2000. Born July 30, 1924, in Fargo, North Dakota, William Gass is a ...

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Bowles, Paul, 1910-1999

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American expatriate writer and novelist. From the description of Letter to Bob Sharrard, 1986 December. (University of Virginia). WorldCat record id: 54097458 American expatriate author living in Morocco. From the description of Papers of Paul Bowles [manuscript], 1957-1984 ca. (University of Virginia). WorldCat record id: 647821107 American expatriate writer. From the description of Paul Bowles letter to Bob Sharrard [manuscript], 1987 March...

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Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984

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Oates, Joyce Carol, 1938-....

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As the winner of the National Book Award for her 1970 novel Them and the recipient of four O. Henry awards and numerous other literary prizes, Joyce Carol Oates is among the most distinguished writers in the United States. In her considerable body of work, she has created an array of male and female protagonists from a diversity of regional, economic, and occupational backgrounds. In the four decades since her first book, the short-story collection By the North Gate, appeared to critical acclaim...

McPhee, John (John A.)

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John "Jack" McPhee (1895-1973) lived off of Farmer's Loop Road in Fairbanks, Alaska, with his wife Hattie (1903-1997). He was an outdoor writer and was published in Gun Digest, Western Sportsman, Old West, Outdoor Life, and Frontier Times. From the description of John McPhee photographs, 1908-1937. (University of Alaska, Fairbanks). WorldCat record id: 496820875 ...

Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-1989

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Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), first poet laureate of the United States, was a poet, writer of fiction, and co-author with Cleanth Brooks of influential textbooks on literature. He won Pulitzer Prizes for All the King's Men (1946) and for volumes of poetry, Promises (1958) and Now and Then (1979). From the description of Robert Penn Warren papers, 1906-1989. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702132948 Robert Penn Warren served on the faculty of Louisiana State University, Dept...

Sanchez, Thomas.

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Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919-2010

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Jerome David Salinger is infamously reclusive, and there are few known facts about his life. He was born on January 1, 1919, to an upper-middle–class family in New York City. His Jewish father, Sol, worked as an importer of ham. His mother, Miriam (born Marie Jillich), was of Scotch-Irish descent. His one sister, Doris, is eight years his senior. As a child, Salinger attended schools near his home in Manhattan. In 1932 he was enrolled in the McBurney School, a private institution t...

Boyle, Kay, 1902-1992

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q81d3s (person)

Kay Boyle (1902-1992) was an American avant garde writer and poet. She lived in San Francisco, Newark, Delaware, and Rowayton, Connecticut, when she wrote these letters. From the description of Kay Boyle letters and poems, 1935-1975. (Pennsylvania State University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 33890909 Kay Boyle was an American essayist, novelist, short-story writer, translator, essayist, and translator. From the description of Kay Boyle collection of papers, 1...

Kirsch, Robert

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6930svc (person)

Miller, Henry, 1929-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ws8sk0 (person)

Henry Miller was a Huntingdon Borough, Pa. storekeeper. Jacob Miller was the administrator of his estate, as well as the street regulator and treasurer of the Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad Company. From the description of Estate Accounts and Cashbooks, 1807-1862(inclusive), 1807-1843, 1850-1862(bulk). (Historical Society of Pennsylvania). WorldCat record id: 122590509 Henry Miller (formerly Mueller) had an engraving business in Louisville (Ky.) in the 1850's. ...

Tyler, Anne

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xw5fk2 (person)

Pulitzer Prize winning author of ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, BREATHING LESSONS, CELESTIAL NAVIGATION, LADDER OF YEARS, and other popular novels. From the description of Papers, 1994-1998, 2001 and n.d. (Duke University Library). WorldCat record id: 82167587 From the description of Papers, 1994-1998. (Duke University Library). WorldCat record id: 40093299 Pulitzer Prize winning author of THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, BREATHING LESSONS, CELESTIAL NAVIGATION, LADDER OF YEARS, and ot...