Annie Dillard
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Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945) is an American author.
Born Meta Annie Doak in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she attended the all-girls Hollins College in Virginia where as a sophomore she married her writing professor, the poet R. H. W. Dillard. After nearly dying from pneumonia, Dillard began writing regular, lengthy diary entries, which would later form the basis of her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
She won the Pulitzer Prize (non-fiction) in 1975 with her first book of prose, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is an extended meditation on her observations of the natural world. Some have called it a work of mysticism or theology. This combination of observations on nature and philosophical explorations is also present in several of her other books, including For the Time Being and Holy the Firm.
Bibliography (major works only)
- 1974 Tickets for a Prayer Wheel ISBN 0-81-956536-9 (reissue edition) (poetry)
- 1974 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek ISBN 0-06-095302-0 (nonfiction narrative)
- 1977 Holy The Firm ISBN 0-06-091543-9 (nonfiction narrative)
- 1982 Living By Fiction ISBN 0-06-091544-7 (nonfiction narrative)
- 1982 Teaching a Stone To Talk ISBN 0-06-091541-2 (essays)
- 1984 Encounters with Chinese Writers ISBN 0-81-956156-8 (nonfiction narrative)
- 1987 An American Childhood ISBN 0-06-091518-8 (a memoir)
- 1989 The Writing Life ISBN 0-06-091988-4 (nonfiction narrative)
- 1992 The Living ISBN 0-06-092411-X (novel)
- 1995 Mornings Like This: Found Poems ISBN 0-06-092725-9 (found poetry)
- 1999 For the Time Being ISBN 0-37-540380-9 (nonfiction narrative)
External Links
- The Secrets of the Universe as Decoded by the Unhinged (http://www.anniedillard.com) Annie Dillard’s official site
- Featured Author: Annie Dillard Articles by and about Dillard from the archives of the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/28/specials/dillard.html)
- Information on Annie Dillard (http://anniedillard.blogspot.com) Features a complete and updated bibliography; an excellent resource for scholarly research.
- The Mysticism of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (http://www.well.com/user/elliotts/smse_dillard.html) A critical essay
- The Ecotheology of Annie Dillard: A Study in Ambivalence (http://www.crosscurrents.org/dillard.htm) A critical essay
- Ideas are tough; irony is easy (http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxii/10.4.96/ae/dillard.html) Yale Herald interview
- A Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/28/specials/dillard-pilgrim.html) New York Times interview
- Tete a tete: Lunch with Annie Dillard (http://www.towerofbabel.com/splashingheart/teteatete/anniedillard) Interview with Malcolm Lawrence