Stephen Emerson (born 1950 in

Sylva, North Carolina Sylva is an incorporation (municipal government), incorporated town located in central Jackson County, North Carolina, Jackson County, in the Plott Balsams, Plott Balsam Mountains of Western North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 United St ...

), is an American writer of fiction and other prose.

Life and work

Emerson wrote his early stories while at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

, where he met

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than 60 books. He is associated with the Black Mountain poets, although his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. Creeley was close with Charle ...

, worked with novelist

Reynolds Price Edward Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011) was an American poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist and James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in Biblical ...

, and wrote a directed thesis on

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

. He then moved west and worked with novelists

Wright Morris Wright Marion Morris (January 6, 1910 – April 25, 1998) was an American novelist, photographer, and essayist. He is known for his portrayals of the people and artifacts of the Great Plains in words and pictures, as well as for experimenting wit ...

and

Kay Boyle Kay Boyle (February 19, 1902 – December 27, 1992) was an American novelist, short story writer, educator, and political activist. Boyle is best known for her fiction, which often explored the intersections of personal and political themes. Her ...

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

. During the 1970s Emerson met several more of the writers he admired, forming influential friendships with Fielding Dawson and Edward Dorn, as well as

Tom Raworth Thomas Moore Raworth (19 July 1938 – 8 February 2017) was an English-Irish poet, publisher, editor, and teacher who published over 40 books of poetry and prose during his life. His work has been translated and published in many countries. Rawor ...

, Bill Berkson,

Lucia Berlin Lucia Brown Berlin (November 12, 1936 – November 12, 2004) was an American short story writer. She had a small, devoted following, but did not reach a mass audience during her lifetime. She rose to sudden literary fame in 2015, eleven years aft ...

, and

Ted Pearson Ted Pearson (born 1948 in Palo Alto, California) is an American poet. He is often associated with the Language poets. Life and work Pearson was born in 1948 in Palo Alto, California. He began studying music in 1960 and began writing poetry in 196 ...

. A portion of his early novel ''The Wife'' appeared in ''New Directions in Prose and Poetry'' No. 37 (1978). His critical writings on

Gilbert Sorrentino Gilbert Sorrentino (April 27, 1929 – May 18, 2006) was an American novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, professor, and editor. In over twenty-five works of fiction and poetry, Sorrentino explored the comic and formal possibili ...

and

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

appeared in ''The Review of Contemporary Fiction''. Additional work has appeared in ''Credences'', ''Periodics'', ''Zyzzyva'', ''Rolling Stock'', ''Hambone'', and other small magazines. Before returning to San Francisco in 1978, he lived in

Bolinas Bolinas is an unincorporated coastal community and census-designated place in Marin County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,483. It is located on the California coast, approximately (straight line dis ...

, California,

Anchorage Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...

, Alaska, and

Key West Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida, at the southern end of the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it con ...

, Florida. During the 1970s he worked as an automobile mechanic and an editor. Later, he was a freelancer in the advertising business. Emerson resides in

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

, California.

Selected publications

''Moon the Shirt and Pants Monopoly Man''
(with Fielding Dawson), 1976, Shortstop Press (New York) *''The Lee Morgan Memorial Album'', 1977, 100 Posters (New York) *''Semi-Tropical Hoopla'', 1981, Vortex Editions (San Francisco) *''Neighbors''] (stories), 1982, Tombouctou Books (Bolinas, CA) *''The Wife'' (novel), 1985, Long River Books (East Haven, CT)
''A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories of Lucia Berlin''
(Editor, Introduction"The World in Perpetual Motion"
/ref>), 2015, Farrar, Straus & Giroux Emerson holds a BA (French literature) from Duke and an MA (Creative Writing) from San Francisco State University

External links

(Seven Works)
"The World in Perpetual Motion"
(introduction), ''A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories of Lucia Berlin''

Reviews

*Andrei Codrescu: Neighbors by Stephen Emerson,

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news. Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publi ...

, April 3, 1983 *Doug Lang: Neighbors by Stephen Emerson, Black Tickets and other books by Jayne Anne Philips, ''Washington Review'', April–May 1983 *Editors of Rolling Stock: The Wife by Stephen Emerson, ''Rolling Stock'' #9, 1985

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emerson, Stephen 1950 births Living people 20th-century American writers 21st-century American writers 20th-century American male writers