Alice Mattison is an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while othe ...

and

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

writer.

Life

Mattison was born in Brooklyn and attended Queens College and Harvard University, where she received a doctorate in literature. She has lived in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

CT since the 1970s. She has taught fiction in the Low-Residency MFA Program in Writing at

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

since 1995 and at the

Fine Arts Work Center The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise devoted to encouraging the growth and development of emerging visual artists and writers through residency programs, to the propagation of aesthetic values and experience, and to the restoratio ...

in Provincetown, MA. Mattison has also taught at Brooklyn College,

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

and

Albertus Magnus College Albertus Magnus College is a private Catholic university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded by the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs (now Dominican Sisters of Peace), it is located in the Prospect Hill neighborhood of New Haven, n ...

. Mattison and the poet

Jane Kenyon Jane Kenyon (May 23, 1947 – April 22, 1995) was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the sub ...

met when both published books with the cooperative press Alice James Books, and forged a close friendship and working relationship. Mattison has written about their friendship and mutual influence in an essay published in the

Michigan Quarterly Review The ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The quarterly (known as "MQR" for short) publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and ...

, entitled "Let It Grow in the Dark Like a Mushroom: Writing with Jane Kenyon."

Career

Mattison began her career as a poet, publishing a collection of poems in 1980. She began writing short stories in the 1980s. Her first collection of stories, ''Great Wits'', was published in 1988, and her first novel, ''Field of Stars'', in 1992. Mattison's writing has been characterized in a review of "When We Argued All Night" (

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Sunday Book Review): "Her prose is so crisp that along with all the pleasures of fiction she manages to deliver the particular intellectual satisfactions of an essay or a documentary."

Selected works

;Books * "Conscience," (novel), Pegasus, 2018 * "The Kite and the String", (craft), Viking, 2016 * "When We Argued All Night", (novel),

Harper Perennial Harper Perennial is a paperback imprint of the publishing house HarperCollins Publishers. Overview Harper Perennial has divisions located in New York, London, Toronto, and Sydney. The imprint is descended from the Perennial Library imprint foun ...

, 2012. * "Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn" (novel) Harper Perennial, September, 2008. * "In Case We’re Separated: Connected Stories" William Morrow/

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

, October, 2005; ''New York Times Notable Book, 2005.'' Paperback, Harper Perennial, 2006. * "The Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman" (novel) William Morrow/HarperCollins, August, 2004. Paperback, Harper Perennial, 2005. * "The Book Borrower" (novel) 1999, William Morrow and Co. Paperback, Harper Perennial, 2000. Reissued, HarperPerennial, 2008; ''New York Times Notable Book, 1999.'' * "Men Giving Money, Women Yelling" (intersecting stories), Morrow, 1997. Paperback, Quill, 1998; ''New York Times Notable Book, 1997.'' * "Hilda and Pearl" (novel) Morrow, 1995; large print edition, Thorndike Press, 1995. Paperback, Harper Perennial, 2001. * "The Flight of Andy Burns" (short stories), Morrow, 1993. * "Field of Stars" (novel) Morrow, 1992. * "Great Wits" (stories) Morrow, 1988. Paperback,

Penguin Penguins ( order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapt ...

,1990. * "Animals" (poems)

Alice James Books Alice James Books is an American non-profit poetry press located in Farmington, Maine and affiliated with the University of Maine at Farmington. History and mission "Alice James Books was founded as a co-operative press in Cambridge, MA in 197 ...

, 1980. ;Edited book * ''As I Sat On The Green: Living Without a Home in New Haven'' (co-editor with Lezley TwoBears and Patricia Benedict); 2000, Citizens’ Project and Melville Charitable Trust. ;Stories in journals * “Raw Edge” Threepenny Review, Summer, 2013. * “The Vandercook” Ecotone, 2011. * “Brooklyn Circle”

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

, November 12, 2007 * “The Bad Jew”

Glimmer Train ''Glimmer Train'' was an American short story literary journal. It was published quarterly, accepting works primarily from emerging writers. Stories published in ''Glimmer Train'' were listed in ''The Best American Short Stories'', as well as app ...

, Fall, 2005 * “Election Day”

, Summer, 2005 * “In The Dark, Who Pats The Air” Shenandoah, Spring/Summer, 2005 * “The Odds It Would Be You” Threepenny Review, Spring, 2005 * “Pastries At the Bus Stop”

Ms. Magazine ''Ms.'' is an American feminist magazine co-founded in 1971 by journalist and social/political activist Gloria Steinem. It was the first national American feminist magazine. The original editors were Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Mary Thom, Patricia ...

, Spring, 2005

Awards

* Many of Alice Mattison's short stories have been cited for distinction in

The Best American Short Stories The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of '' The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in ...

(1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2006.) * Four of her short stories have been awarded the

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors ar ...

, including “Three Bartlett Pears” (Pushcart Prize XXXVI, 2012), "The Odds It Would Be You" (Pushcart Prize XXXI, 2007), "I Am Not Your Mother" (Pushcart Prize XXIX, 2005) and "The Disappearing Teapot” (Pushcart Prize XXIV, 2000.) * "The Vandercook", was included in The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, 2012. Mattison's short story, "Election Day", was awarded the Lawrence Foundation Prize from Michigan Quarterly Review in 2005. Mattison's novel, ''In Case We’re Separated'', won the Connecticut Book Award for fiction in 2006.

Interviews

* (with Sarai Walker), “The Ecotone Interview With Alice Mattison” * (with Sarah Anne Johnson), “An Interview with Alice Mattison”, Writer’s Chronicle, December, 2006. * (with Sarah Anne Johnson),''The Very Telling: Conversations with American Writers'', UPNE, 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mattison, Alice Living people 20th-century American novelists American women short story writers American women novelists 21st-century American novelists Writers from New Haven, Connecticut 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers Novelists from Connecticut Queens College, City University of New York alumni Brooklyn College faculty Yale University faculty Bennington College faculty Harvard University alumni Albertus Magnus College faculty 1942 births American women academics