Jean Thompson (born January 3, 1950) is an American novelist, short story writer, and teacher of creative writing. She lives in

Urbana, Illinois Urbana ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. As of the 2010 United States Census, Urbana is the 38th-most populous municipality in Illinois. It ...

, where she has spent much of her career, and is a professor emerita at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univers ...

, having also taught at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

Reed College Reed College is a private university, private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland, Portland, Oregon, Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor style architecture ...

, and

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Chart ...

Early life, education, and career

Jean Thompson was born in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, and during her childhood the family lived briefly in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana borde ...

and

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the County seat, seat of Shelby County, Tennessee, Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 Uni ...

. She received her undergraduate degree from the

, and an MFA from

Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a Public university, public research university in Bowling Green, Ohio. The main academic and residential campus is south of Toledo, Ohio. The university has nationally recognized programs and research ...

. Her first stories were published in

little magazines In the United States, a little magazine is a magazine genre consisting of "artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals or presses", according to a 1942 study by Frederick J. Hoffman ...

while she was still in her early twenties, and not long after that she began to be published in more visible venues, such as ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bost ...

'' and ''

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 ...

''. Her stories have appeared 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 ...

series, beginning with the 1979 edition.

Literary themes and style

Thompson "often writes about the difficulties and complexities of love," and her work "focuses on the lives of ordinary people, often women, living in the overlooked center" of the United States.

Bibliography

Novels

* ''My Wisdom: A Novel'' (1982), F. Watts () * ''Wide Blue Yonder'' (2001), Simon & Schuster () * ''City Boy'' (2004), Simon & Schuster () * ''The Year We Left Home'' (2011), Simon & Schuster () * ''The Humanity Project'' (2013), Blue Rider Press () * ''She Poured Out Her Heart'' (2016), Blue Rider Press () * ''A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl'' (2018), Simon & Schuster () * ''The Poet's House'' (2022), Algonquin Books ()

Story collections

* ''Gasoline Wars'' (1982), University of Illinois Press () * ''Who Do You Love'' (1999), Simon & Schuster () * ''Throw Like A Girl: Stories'' (2007), Simon & Schuster () * ''Do Not Deny Me: Stories'' (2009), Simon & Schuster () * ''The Witch: And Other Tales Re-Told'' (2014), Simon & Schuster ()

Notable stories

* "Applause, Applause." First appeared in ''

'' (1977), and selected for the collections ''Matters of Life and Death'' (1983), edited by

Tobias Wolff Tobias is the transliteration of the Greek which is a translation of the Hebrew biblical name he, טוֹבִיה, Toviyah, JahGod is good, label=none. With the biblical Book of Tobias being present in the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha of the Bible, ...

(), and ''

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules ''Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules'' is a 2005 anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris. Sedaris published this book in order to support 826NYC, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in Brooklyn, New York. All of his proc ...

'' (2005), edited by

David Sedaris David Raymond Sedaris (; born December 26, 1956) is an American humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. He was publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay "Santaland Diaries.” He published his first co ...

() * "Paper Covers Rock." First appeared in

Mademoiselle Mademoiselle (abbreviated as ''Mlle'' or ''M'') may refer to: * Mademoiselle (title), the French-language equivalent of the title "miss" Film and television * ''Mademoiselle'' (1966 film), a French-British drama directed by Tony Richardson * '' ...

, and selected for '' The Best American Short Stories 1979'', edited by Joyce Carol Oates. * "Remembering Sonny." Selected for ''The Random Review 1982'', edited by

Gary Fisketjon Gary Fisketjon (born 1954) was an Editor and vice-president of Knopf Publishing until his dismissal in May 2019. also accesherevia Wayback Machine Fisketjon created the Vintage Contemporaries line of paperbacks at Random House. He was the editorial ...

and

Jonathan Galassi Jonathan Galassi (born 1949 in Seattle, Washington) has served as the president and publisher of ''Farrar, Straus and Giroux'' and is currently the Chairman and Executive Editor. Early life Galassi was born in Seattle (his father worked as an ...

. () * "Fire Dreams." Published in ''

'', October 31, 1988. * "The Little Heart." Published in ''

'', January 27, 1992. * "All Shall Love Me and Despair." First published in ''Mid-American Review'', and selected for ''

The Best American Short Stories 1996 ''The Best American Short Stories 1996'', a volume in '' The Best American Short Stories series'', was edited by Katrina Kenison and by guest editor John Edgar Wideman.''Chicago Tribune'', Jan. 5, 1997 Short stories included References ...

'', edited by

John Edgar Wideman John Edgar Wideman (born June 14, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. He was the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. His writing is known for experimental techniques and a focus o ...

Other writing

*
All Things Come to an End. Even My 2001 Saturn
" ''New York Times'', March 20, 2016
Introduction
" ''Ploughshares'', Issue 123 (Spring 2014)

Awards and honors

* 1978:

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

Literature Fellowship * 1984:

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

* 1999: Finalist,

National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...

(for ''Who Do You Love'') * 2009-2010:

and

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 ...

(both for "Wilderness")

References

External links

Author's websiteAuthor page on publisher's website

Interview with Jean Thompson, Author of ''She Poured Out Her Heart''
" ''Book Babble''. * Randolph, Ladette.
About Jean Thompson
" ''Ploughshares'' 23 (Spring 2014). {{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Jean 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American women novelists American women short story writers University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Novelists from Illinois 1950 births Living people 20th-century American women 21st-century American women