Short Story Writers

Algren, Nelson

March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981

Place of Birth:  Detroit, MI

Biography:
Nelson Algren was born to Gerson Abraham (a garage mechanic) and Goldie (candy store owner) Algren in Detroit, MI.  Algren was the youngest of three siblings and lived with his family in a poor immigrant neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.  He graduated from Chicago’s public schools in 1928 and in 1931 graduated with a B.A. in journalism from the University of Illinois right during the Great Depression.  He went south in hopes of working for a newspaper, and ended up with many different jobs, including being a door-to-door salesman.  In 1933 he worked at a gas station in Rio Hondo, Texas and wrote his first short story, So Help Me, which was published in Story magazine.  This led to a contract for his first novel, Somebody in Boots.  In 1939 Algren moved back to Chicago and worked for the Chicago Board of Health and also was a co-editor for The New Anvil.  He published several short stories and contributed to the W.P.A. Illinois Writer’s Project.  He married Amanda Kontowicz in 1937, but the two divorced, re-married, and divorced again.  His second book, Never Come Morning, was published in 1942 before Algren enlisted in the U.S. army in 1942, during WWII.  During this experience he wrote several short stories for magazines such as Noble Savage and Esquire.  After the war Algren published many books.  His breakthrough novel, The Man with the Golden Arm, published in 1949, won the first National Book Award for fiction in 1950.  It was later made into a film, starring Frank Sinatra.  Algren married Betty Ann in 1965 and got divorced her two years later.  He regularly wrote a column for the Chicago Free Press and taught creative writing classes at both Iowa and Florida universities, but struggled with heavy drinking and gambling.  Algren liked to grapple with tough subjects, and vividly painted Chicago’s overlooked urban life with including drunks, pimps, prostitutes, and other low-life figures in his novels. He moved to Paterson, New Jersey and wrote his fourth Novel The Devil’s Stocking which was published after his death in 1983.  In September of 1980 he moved to Long Island and died of a heart attack on May 9, 1981.

Selected Works:

       
• Somebody in Boots (1935)
       
• Never Come Morning (1942)
       
• The Man with the Golden Arm (1949)
       
• A Walk on the Wild Side (1956)
       
• Notes from a Sea Diary: Hemingway All the Way (1965)
       
• The Last Carousel (1973)
       
• The Devil’s Stocking (1983)

Awards:

       
• 1947 National Institute of Arts and Letters Fellowship>
       
• 1950 Newberry Library Fellowship
       
• 1950 National Book Award
       
• 1974 National Institute of Arts and Letters of Merit
       
• 1982 Fiction contest established in his name by Chicago Magazine
       
• 1983 P.E.N./Nelson Algren Fiction Award begun in his memory by P.E.N. American Center

Critical Reception:
Algren’s first book, Somebody in Boots, received little success during the Great Depression, selling only 750 copies.  Algren had better success with The Man with the Golden Arm, winning the National Book Award for fiction in 1950, and having the book turned into a movie.  His book Chicago, The City On The Make, was disapproved by the Chicago Chamber of Congress because Alger’s specialized on showing the rough side of the city instead of its successful business enterprises.  Algen’s comic novel, A Walk on the Wild Side was declared a master piece.

Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
Algren spent most of his life outside of Michigan and was greatly influenced by his family and immigrant neighborhood in Chicago.

Anderson, Lauri

October 27, 1942 -

Place of Birth:  Foxcroft, ME

Place of Principle Residence:  Hancock, MI

Biography:
    Lauri Arvid Anderson was born to Ruby Littlefield of “Old New England” and Arvid Anderson (a Finnish immigrant) in 1942 in Maine.  He attended the University of Maine and achieved his BA in English in 1965 and his MA in International Education in 1969 from Michigan State University.  From 1965 to 1967 Anderson volunteered for the Peace Corps in Nigeria and then served as an English teacher at North County High School in Vermont between 1967 and 1969.  In 1971 Anderson completed a MA in English at the University of Pacific and taught at Mizpah Mission School as the chair of English and Dean until 1972.  He then moved to Izmir, Turkey to work at the American Collegiate Institute as the chair of English until 1976.  From there Anderson went to Hancock, Main where he still serves as the chair of English and the Division Head of Humanities.  In addition her served as and English instructor for the Phillips-Andover Academy, a school for gifted minority students, from 1995 to 1997.  Anderson has authored five prose works and one book of poetry, many of which exemplify a sarcastic tone, and Anderson’s Finnish heritage.  He is the brother of poet Wendy Anderson and author Stuart Anderson and has three children, Eric, Charlotte, and Lucy.

Selected Works:

       
• Impressions of Arvo Laurila (2005)
       
• Misery Bay (2001)
       
• Children of the Kalevala (1997)
       
• Heikki Heikkinen and Other Stories of Upper Peninsula Finns (1995)
       
• Hunting Hemingway’s Trout (1990)
       
• Small Winter Wars (1983)
       
• Snow White and Others (1971)

 

Awards:

       
• 1996-1997 FinnFest guest writer
       
• 1995 MLA guest writer
       
• 1994 Honorable Mention, Fiction Contest, Finnish American Reporter
       
• 1988 Honorable Mention, Writers of the Future
       
• 1985 Selected for NEH Institute in Commonwealth Literature, Indiana U.
       
• 1983 Selected for NEH Seminar in Twelfth-Century Civilization, Mt. Holyoke
       
• 1981 Selected for NEH Seminar in American Humor, U. of New Mexico

Critical Reception:
    Anderson has written and received many grants to continue his academic and creative work. 

For Back to Misery Bay:

“Lauri Anderson deftly and often humorously captures the love-hate relationship that his Finnish-American characters have with Misery Bay, their hearts’ home in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Many of Lauri Anderson’s Finns seem determined to raise their various dysfunctionalities to an art form, but through their very fallibility they tug at our hearts. As one wise old Finn advises his war-shattered nephew, People are really screwed up but love them anyway. They’re all we have.     
          —Judy Hakola, Lecturer in English, University of Maine

For Hemingway’s Trout:Stories:

This short collection of stories and sketches about Ernest Hemingway and an army of fictional characters who study his work is mildly interesting but lacks the order, tension and overarching theme necessary to form an exciting whole.
          - Publishers Weekly

Brief, amateurish essays about Ernest Hemingway here alternate with seven short stories, each constructed around some character or image from Hemingway’s work….some of the individual stories are entertaining, but the collection feels contrived, the prose dated by references to the Sixties. Book budget dollars would be better spent on new editions of Hemingway.
          - Library Journal

Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
      Anderson teaches at Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan.  Several of his books, including Children of Kalevala, take place in Upper Michigan. 

 

Kirk, Russell

October 19, 1918 – April 29, 1994

Place of Birth: Plymouth, MI
Place of Principle Residence: Mecosta, MI
Biography:
Russell A. Kirk was born to Marjorie and Russell Kirk in Plymouth, Mi in 1918.  He got his B.A. at Michigan State University in 1940, his M.A. at Duke University in 1941, and his D. Litt at St. Andrew’s University (in Scotland) in 1952.  Kirk is the only American to earn the highest arts degree from St. Andrews.  During the course of his life Kirk became the poster child for seizing rich and versatile experiences and became known as one of America’s leading thinkers.  He published over thirty-two books, many short stories, and hundreds of periodical essays appearing in U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland periodicals. His book, The Conservative Mind, went through seven editions.  In total his books have sold over a million copies and have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages.  Kirk wrote and spoke on topics including modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes.  He lectures on hundreds of American campuses, and some of his public lecture appeared on radio and were broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.  In addition to lecturing, Kirk debated with well-known speakers like Norman Thomas, Hubert Humphrey, and Malcolm X.  He also enjoyed a circle of literary and scholarly friends including T.S. Eliot and Ray Bradbury.  Kirk’s life work won him many awards and much recognition, including being a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland, receiving a Presidential Citizens Medal from President Reagan, the Christopher Award for his book Eliot and His Age, and twelve honorary doctorates from American universities and colleges.  Kirk edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman, and was the founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age.  For twenty-five years he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published (through the LA Times Syndicate) a nationally syndicated newspaper column.  Kirk lived with his wife of almost thirty years, Annette Yvonne Cecile Courtemanche, and his four daughters Monica, Cecilia, Felicia, and Andrea at his ancestral place, Piety Hill, in Mecosta, MI.  He converted a toy factory into his library and office, and was a famous narrator of ghostly tales, many of which he picked up during his travels (often on foot) in Scotland, Ireland, Mediterranean and Alpine lands, and Africa.  The Kirk’s house was often packed with Asiatic, African, and European refugees and exiles, along with university students, travelers from antique lands.  Kirk and Annette held many seminars at their residence in connection with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Wilbur Foundation.  Every year they received several literary interns.  Kirk died in 1994 and his work is continued by the Russell Kirk Center.   
Selected Works:

       
• Randolph of Roanoke : A Study in Conservative Thought (1951)
       
• The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (1953)
       
• Old House of Fear (1961)
       
• Lost Lake: Confessions of a Bohemian Tory (1963)
       
• Eliot and His Age: T.S. Eliot’s Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century (1971)
       
• Lord of the Hollow Dark (1979)
       
• Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered (1985)

Awards:

       
• 1950-1951 American Council of Learned Societies senior fellow
       
• 1956 Guggenheim fellow
       
• 1966 Ann Radcliffe Award for Gothic fiction
       
• 1972 Christopher Award
       
• 1977 World Fantasy Award for short fiction
       
• 1984 Weaver Award of Ingersoll Prizes for scholarly humane letters
       
• 1985 Freedom Leadership Award, Hillsdale College
       
• 1985 Constitutional fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities
       
• 1988 Literary Michigan by the Michigan Council for the Humanities
       
• 1989 Presidential Citizens Medal, conferred by President Reagan
       
• n/a Honorary degrees from Boston College, Central Michigan University, Olivet College
       
• n/a For several years a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation

Critical Reception:

“As the prophet of American conservatism, Russell Kirk has taught, nurtured, and inspired a generation. From . . . Piety Hill, he reached deep into the roots of American values, writing and editing central works of political philosophy. His intellectual contribution has been a profound act of patriotism. I look forward to the future with anticipation that his work will continue to exert a profound influence in the defense of our values and our cherished civilization.” —Ronald Reagan

“[The Conservative Mind] gave American conservatives and identity and a genealogy and catalyzed the postwar movement.” - The New York Times

Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
For the majority of his life, Kirk’s home was in Mecosta, MI where a number of people from all over the world, including refugees and scholars, lived with him and his family.  Kirk worked in his library and office in a nearby converted toy factory.  Kirk and his wife held many seminars at their home, and were joined each year by several literary interns.

Lardner, Ring

March 6, 1885 - September 35, 1933

Place of Birth:  Niles, MI

Biography:
  Wilmer Ringold Lardner was born to Lena and Henry Lardner in Niles, MI in 1885.  Despite a physical disability, Lardner participated in sports, particularly baseball, which later manifested to being a sports writer later on in his life.  Early on Lardner had an interest in music, theatricals, and writing, composing his high school class’ poem that was published in the Daily Star.  Lardner briefly attended Armour Institute of Technology for engineering, but dropped out and worked a variety of jobs before landing work as a reporter for the South Bend Times in 1905.  In 1907, Lardner transferred to being a sports reporter for various Chicago newspapers, and later as an editor for Sporting News and a columnist for The Chicago Tribune.  Starting in 1907 Lardner began building a reputation as one of the most insightful, entertaining, and innovative sports reporters in the country.  Lardner in particular stood out for the humor, satire, and slang vernacular incorporated into his writing.  Lardner reportedly could turn the most dull baseball came into a comedic, keen perceptive articles and columns.  Eventually Lardner’s columns were printed in 115 newspapers, and over his lifetime he wrote 4,500 articles and columns.  He has received much attention for his American slang vernacular where he studied the way people speak to relate to readers, instead of using it as a device to humiliate.  Eventually Lardner focused more on his short stories and theatrical pieces that portrayed more satire of all aspects of American life than in his columns.  Although he wrote many plays, his only success was June Moon, co-authored with George Kaufman.  He has been compared to authors such as Sinclair Lewis and Mark Twain.  Lardner died on September 35, 1933 of a heart attack. 

Selected Works:

     
• Bib Ballads (1915)
     
• Gullible’s Travels (1917)
     
• Own Your Own Home (1919)
     
• Symptoms of Being 35 (1921)
     
• The Love Nest and Other Stories (1926)
     
• June Moon: a Comedy in a Prologue and Three Acts (1930)

Critical Reception:
Lardner was one of the lucky few who’s writing enjoyed critical and popular approval.  During the 1920s, Lardner rose to great prominence, and was arguably one of the most influential writers of the decade.  His noted style included satire and slang vernacular, and his sports columns were wildly successful, being published in 115 newspapers.  In the last few years of his life, Lardner fell out of public attention.  However, Lardner still remains the forbearer of relating personally with his readers by using humor and the common style of speech.  Journalists today still follow his example.

 

Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
  Lardner grew up in Niles, MI where he first developed his love for sports, particularly baseball, and writing, music, and theatricals.  Later on in life, Lardner incorporated these interests into his career as a sports writer and author of theatricals.

 

Minty, Judith

Marcy 28, 1909 - May 9, 1981

Place of Birth:  Detroit, MI

Place of Principal Residence:  New Era, MI

Biography:
Judith Minty was born in Detroit, Michigan to Karl and Margaret Makinen.  During childhood her years were divided into spending the school semesters in Detroit and the summers camping with her family in the North Woods.  She graduated with a Master’s in English from Western Michigan University in 1993, and has worked as a Professor at colleges in Michigan, the West Coast, and California. In 1982 to 1993 she served as the director of the Creative Writing Program at Humboldt State University.  While teaching, Minty kept up her writing, publishing poems, essays, and short stories that have enjoyed much success and have been published in over fifty anthologies.  She is married to Edgar S. Minty and has three children, Lora, John Reed, and Ann.  Currently Minty resides in western Michigan by the Lake Michigan shoreline, but spends part of her year at a cabin on the Yellow Dog River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 

Selected Works:

     
• Lake Songs and Other Fears (1974)
     
• Yellow Dog Journal (1979)
     
• In the Presence of Mothers (1981)
     
• Contemporary Michigan Poetry: Poems from the Third Coast (1988)
     
• Dancing the Fault (1991)
     
• The Mad Painter Poems (1996)
     
• Walking with the Bear: Selected and New Poems (2000)

Awards:

     
• 1974 Eunice Tietjens Award, Poetry Magazine
     
• 1974 United States Award of the International Poetry Forum
     
• 1981, 1983 Grants, Michigan Council for the Arts
     
• 1985 PEN Syndicated Fiction Award
     
• California Fiction Award from PEN/The Mead Foundation
     
• Villa Montalvo Award for Excellence in Poetry
     
• Kentucky Foundation for Women Residency Grant
     
• Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Michigan Technological University
     
• Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contributions to Midwestern Literature from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature

Critical Reception:

In 1974 Minty’s first book Lake Songs and Other Fears won the US Award of the International Poetry Forum.  Her poetry has been praised for its vivid imagery and captivating themes that Minty draws from her own life experiences.  Editor Elinor Benedict of Passages North wrote Minty “achieves her power without resorting to excess of diction, metaphor, rhetoric, or quirky play with punctuation.  In the web of human relations, she avoids sentimentality; in the depths of the unconscious, she resists portentousness.”  Minty’s poems are used in school curriculums and have been said to reflect Michigan in her poetry including nature and animal themes. 

Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
Minty is greatly inspired by her surroundings.  Her book, The Yellow Dog Journal, reflects her experience of living in the lake country of Michigan near the Yellow Dog River.  In Dancing the Fault Minty compares the lake country of Michigan with the rainy coast of California (where she lived for several years).  Critics have recognized the constant thread of place in Minty’s work, whether in Michigan or in California.

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