Edna Ann Proulx (/pruː/PROO; born August 22, 1935) is an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. She has written most frequently asAnnie Proulx but has also used the namesE. Annie Proulx andE.A. Proulx.[1]
Proulx was born Edna Ann Proulx inNorwich, Connecticut, to Lois Nellie (née Gill) and Georges-Napoléon Proulx.[5] Her first name honored one of her mother's aunts. She is of English andFrench-Canadian ancestry.[6][7] Her maternal forebears came to America in 1635, 15 years after theMayflower arrived.[8]
Proulx lived in multiple states along the East Coast during her childhood as her father worked his way up through the textile industry.[9][10][11] She wrote her first story at the age of 10, while sick with chicken pox.[9] She graduated fromDeering High School inPortland, Maine.[12] She briefly attendedColby College, where she met her first husband, H. Ridgely Bullock, Jr., and dropped out to marry him in 1955.[10] She later returned to college, studying at theUniversity of Vermont from 1966 to 1969, and graduatedcum laude andPhi Beta Kappa with aB.A. in History in 1969. She earned herM.A. in history from Sir George Williams University (nowConcordia University) inMontreal,Quebec in 1973.[13] Proulx pursued aPhD at Concordia and passed her oral examinations in 1975, but abandoned her dissertation before completing the degree. In 1999, Concordia awarded her an honorary doctorate.[14]
Proulx lived for more than 30 years inVermont, has married and divorced three times, and has three sons and a daughter (Jonathan, Gillis, Morgan, and Sylvia). In 1994, she moved to Bird Cloud, a ranch inSaratoga, Wyoming, spending part of the year in northernNewfoundland on a small cove adjacent toL'Anse aux Meadows. As of 2019, Proulx lived inPort Townsend, Washington.[15]
Starting as a journalist, her first published work of fiction was "The Customs Lounge", a science fiction story published in the September 1963 issue ofIf, under the byline "E.A. Proulx".[16]
A year later, her science fiction story "All the Pretty Little Horses" appeared in the teen magazineSeventeen in June 1964. She subsequently published stories inEsquire magazine andGray's Sporting Journal in the late 1970s, as well as how-to manuals for cooking and gardening.[17][18] Proulx published her first short-story collection,Heart Songs, in 1988 and her first novel,Postcards, in 1992.[11] She was the first woman to receive the PEN/Faulkner Award, which was awarded toPostcards.[19] She was awarded aNEA fellowship and aGuggenheim fellowship in 1992.[20][2] Her 1993 novelThe Shipping News was adapted fora 2001 film. Set in Newfoundland yet written by someone "from away"[21] (not from Newfoundland), the novel stresses the vicarious quality of Proulx' writing.
She had the following comment on her celebrity status:
It's not good for one's view of human nature, that's for sure. You begin to see, when invitations are coming from festivals and colleges to come read (for an hour for a hefty sum of money), that the institutions are head-hunting for trophy writers. Most don't particularly care about your writing or what you're trying to say. You're there as a human object, one that has won a prize. It gives you a very odd, meat-rack kind of sensation.[22]
In 1997, Proulx was awarded theDos Passos Prize, a mid-career award for American writers.[23] Proulx has twice won theO. Henry Prize for the year's best short story. In 1998, she won for "Brokeback Mountain", which had appeared inThe New Yorker on October 13, 1997. Proulx won again the following year for "The Mud Below", which appeared inThe New Yorker June 22 and 29, 1999. Both appear in her 1999 collection of short stories,Close Range: Wyoming Stories. The lead story in this collection, entitled "The Half-Skinned Steer", was selected by authorGarrison Keillor for inclusion inThe Best American Short Stories 1998, (Proulx herself edited the 1997 edition of this series) and later by novelistJohn Updike for inclusion inThe Best American Short Stories of the Century (1999).[19]
In 2007, the composerCharles Wuorinen approached Proulx with the idea of turning her short story "Brokeback Mountain" into anopera. Theopera of the same name with alibretto by Proulx herself premiered January 28, 2014, at theTeatro Real inMadrid. It was praised as an often brilliant adaptation that clearly conveyed the text of the libretto with music that is rich in imagination and variety.[24][25][26][27][28] Proulx published her first non-fiction book,Bird Cloud: A Memoir, largely based on her former Wyoming ranch of the same name.[18][29] In 2017, she received the Fitzgerald Award for that year for Achievement in American Literature.[30]
Foreword (2018) In: Wild Migrations: Atlas of Wyoming's Ungulates. Alethea Y. Steingisser, Emilene Ostlind, Hall Sawyer, James E. Meacham, Matthew J. Kauffman, and William J. Rudd (Eds.).ISBN978-0870719431
Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis (2022)[31]
2002—Best Foreign Language Novels of 2002 / Best American Novel Award, Chinese Publishing Association and Peoples' Literature Publishing House (That Old Ace in the Hole)
^Hennessy, D. M. (2007). Annie Proulx. In R. E. Lee & P. Meanor (Eds.),Dictionary of Literary Biography: Vol. 335. American Short-Story Writers Since World War II. Detroit: Gale.
^Annie Proulx. (2013). In J. W. Hunter (Ed.), Contemporary Literary Criticism (Vol. 331). Detroit: Gale.
^Jukka Petäjä, Maisema on ihmisen kehys ja varjo,Helsingin Sanomat, October 26, 2011, pg. C4.(in Finnish)
Hennessy, Denis M."Annie Proulx."American Short-Story Writers Since World War II: Fifth Series. Ed. Richard E. Lee and Patrick Meanor. Detroit: Gale, 2007.Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 335.
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