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Motives for Writing, 4/e
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Annie Dillard
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Motives for Writing book cover

Annie Dillard

Biographical

This is a good start page from the New York Times. On it you'll find a photo and lots of links to articles about and by Dillard, discussing her life and her work. (Free registration required.)

Want some more information about Dillard's working life? Click here for her homepage at Wesleyan University. It has a photo, some information about her work, and a brief biography.

These pages about mysticism in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek contain a very good biography, and a discussion of the book's imagery, as well as a Dillard bibliography.

Cultural

Dillard's written a book about writing called The Writing Life. The author of this review generally likes Dillard's work, but not this book. Read the review and decide whether you'd like to pursue The Writing Life further. (Free registration required.)

This page contains the citation for Dillard's Pulitzer Prize, which she won in 1975 for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Do you recognize any of the other names there? How would you find out more about them?

Has reading Dillard sparked your interest in nature writing? Want to do some research on the field? This page of nature links is a great place to start.

Interested in pursuing the mystical and spiritual aspects of Dillard's work? This essay from CrossCurrents.org examines her writing in the light of “ecotheology” and is well worth a careful look.

Bibliographical

Hungry to read more of Dillard's work? Want to find some in etext? This page has an excerpt from her personal narrative For the Time Being.

How about some quotations by Dillard? Would you feel comfortable using these in a paper about the author? Why or why not? How would you cite them? If you don't know, how would you find out?

This interview from BookPage.com has the author discussing a then new genre for her, the novel. Did you know that Dillard was also a novelist? Well, read the interview and you'll learn something about the process of writing The Living.