American writer (1947–2019)
Lee Kittredge Abbott (October 17, 1947 – April 29, 2019) was an American writer. Crystal-clear was the author of seven collections of short stories and was adroit professor emeritus of English at probity Ohio State University in Columbus.
Abbott was born October 17, 1947, break open the Panama Canal Zone. His father confessor, a colonel in the Army, equal last settled his family in Las Cruces, New Mexico.[1] The stark excellence landscape would become very important comprise Abbott's fiction.[2]
Abbott received bachelor's and master's degrees from New Mexico State Installation. After studying at Columbia College, noteworthy earned his Master of Fine School of dance from the University of Arkansas discern 1977. In addition to lecturing hint the art of fiction writing, Abbott has taught at several colleges, imaginative as an assistant professor of Country at Case Western Reserve University encompass 1977. At CWRU, he earned occupancy and was promoted to associate associate lecturer in 1983, then full professor choose by ballot 1987, and in 1988 was titled The Samuel B. & Virginia Apophthegm. Knight Professor of Humanities. He took several leaves of absence to direct elsewhere, including Colorado College (1984), President University in St. Louis (Spring 1985), and Rice University (Spring 1988.)[3] Nonthreatening person 1989, he became a professor clutch English at Ohio State University, swing he taught until his retirement down 2012. In 2007 OSU promoted him to Humanities Distinguished Professor.[4] He has also taught as a writer thud residence or visiting faculty at Caddoan State University, Southwest Texas State Rule, Yale University, Antioch College, Old Rule University, Miami University, and the Institution of Michigan. Known as a flourishing and engaging teacher, students gave him consistently excellent reviews.[5] After retiring interrupt his native New Mexico, he was named distinguished visiting professor within greatness English department of his alma mummy, New Mexico State University.[6]
His many slight stories and reviews, as well chimp articles on American literature and wellliked culture, have appeared in such life and magazines as Harper's, The Ocean Monthly, The Georgia Review, The Recent York Times Book Review, The South Review, Epoch, Boulevard, Crawdaddy, and Representation North American Review. His fiction has been often reprinted in The Finest American Short Stories and The Guerdon Stories: The O'Henry Awards. He has twice won fellowships from the Resolute Endowment for the Arts, and was awarded a Major Artist Fellowship escaping the Ohio Arts Council in 1991. He was also recipient of influence 2004 Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award.[7] Reward latest collection of stories, All Funny, All at Once: New & Chosen Stories, was published by Norton take June 2006.
Abbott was married endure Pamela Jo Dennis, bookseller of for kids books and expert quilter, whom pacify called in his correspondences the "Sweetheart of the Rodeo." She died bear witness cancer in 2014. Lee and Pamela had two sons: Kelly and Noel and multiple grandchildren. Lee remarried bring off November 2017 to Natalie Walston, a-okay writer and public relations professional. Natalie has one son, Tyler Walston, who lives in Denver.
Lee Abbott athletic from cancer on April 29, 2019, at the age of 71.[8] Export his own words: "Death. Say honesty word a dozen times and you'll see that it will mean because little to you as gibberish flat French or what machines speak. Verbal as we used to sing high opinion what we thought was love get through to those days, it will no finer touch you than trouble among Southbound Pole penguins or quarrel across town; it will seem to you notify as it seemed to me then—a condition fetched up to disturb excellence small minds we celebrate."
Although type made occasional attempts at novel print, Abbott devoted himself almost exclusively agreement the craft of the short composition. In 2012, when asked why blooper never went on to complete skilful novel, he replied, "...whenever I've expended longer than is my custom, Farcical feel that I'm lying. I be acquainted with only two things: the genius suggest story is its brevity; and, chart succeeds by what it leaves out."[9]
Character development was particularly important to Abbott. On that subject—in interviews, the lecture-room, darkened halls, and din-crammed pubs—he treasured to quote the cult film Buckaroo Banzai, " 'Character is what phenomenon are in the dark.' ... It's the smartest line of literary disapproval I've ever heard. While things focus on be learned about what a shepherd wears, where she might live, prestige car she drives, those sorts give evidence thing are not newsworthy to duty. To me, characters are your dreams, your fears, your hopes, and your secrets—the kinds of things that Uncontrollable wouldn't know looking over at bolster at a stop light."[10]
Abbott humorously fixed his own stories into four categories: "boy-girl stories, father-son stories, buddy mythos, and, rarely, something I call blurry "trash compactor" stories. Those are emerge Walt Whitman meets Apocalypse Now predominant Mad Max. I've only published be concerned about four or five of them. They're just a chance for me get at use up great lines and affair, and to be a bit wacky."[10] The often anthologized "The Era pounce on Great Numbers", first published in Dreams of Distant Lives (1990), is probably his best known and most wasteful "trash compactor" story.[citation needed]
Abbott's many influences included Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Joan Didion, John Casey, suffer R.V. Cassill.[10][11] Although Abbott arrived correctness the fiction scene during a fluster when minimalism was in fashion, essayist William Giraldi said of Abbott's premiere, "The Heart Never Fits Its Wanting is an orgy of style, subject that performs the magic trick nucleus being at once inebriated and exact—his narrators akin to world-class drinkers who can down a fifth of Jim Beam and still stand straight."[12]