Jayne Anne Phillips

Born and raised in small town West Virginia, Jayne Anne Phillips hitchhiked across the US with a woman friend when she was 19. At 26, a year out of grad school, she published Black Tickets, a first book of stories that influenced a generation of writers and won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. Her first novel, Machine Dreams, chosen one of twelve Best Books of the Year by the New York Times. A second book of stories, Fast Lanes, preceded Shelter, in which a 60’s era Girl Guides camp set in a forest primeval is the backdrop for a sensual battle between good and evil. MotherKind follows Kate through the first year of her infant son’s life and the last year she shares with her terminally ill mother. Lark and Termite, finalist for the National Book Award, the NBCC Award, and the Prix de Medici Etrangers, traces the magical connection between a soldier caught up in the Korean War, the disabled son he will never know, and Lark, a young girl who believes her brother is deeply conscious of more than he appears to understand. Quiet Dell, a portrait of Depression-era America, follows the real life saga of a 1931 serial murderer who used matrimonial agencies to seduce wealthy widows, but takes as its heroines the three children of an Illinois widow and the female reporter who won’t stop looking for them. Night Watch, coming soon from Knopf, follows a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the apocalyptic, post-Civil War years in mountainous West Virginia. Phillips, the recipient of Guggenheim, Howard, and Rockefeller Fellowships, is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Boston and New York.