Editing Anne Tyler (section)

=== Early writing and first publications ===
While an undergraduate at Duke, Tyler published her short story "Laura" in the Duke literary journal ''Archive'', for which she won the newly created Anne Flexner award for creative writing.<ref name="Bail, P. 1998" /><ref name="Croft, R. 1995" /> In college and prior to her marriage, she wrote many short stories, one of which impressed Reynolds Price so that he later stated that it was the "most finished, most accomplished short story I have ever received from an undergraduate in my thirty years of teaching."<ref name="Willrich, P. 1992" />  "The Saints in Caesar's Household" was published in ''Archive'' also and won her a second Anne Flexner award.  This short story led to her meeting Diarmuid Russell, to whom Price had sent it with kudos.  Russell, who was an agent for both Reynolds Price and for Tyler's "crowning influence" Eudora Welty, later became Tyler's agent.<ref name="Willrich, P. 1992" /><ref name="Croft, R. 1995" />

While working at the Duke University library, before and after marrying Modarressi—Tyler did continue to write short stories and started work on her first novel, ''[[If Morning Ever Comes]]''.  During this period her short stories appeared in ''The New Yorker'', ''The Saturday Evening Post'', and ''Harpers''.<ref name="Willrich, P. 1992" />  After the couple moved to Montreal—Modarressi's U.S. visa had expired and they moved there so he could finish his residency—Tyler continued writing while looking for work.<ref name="Bail, P. 1998" /><ref name="Croft, R. 1995" />  Her first novel was published in 1964 and ''[[The Tin Can Tree]]'' was published the next year.  Years later she disowned both of these novels, as well as many of the short stories she wrote during this period.  She has even written that she "would like to burn them."<ref name="Tyler, A. 1980" />  She feels that most of this early work suffers from the lack of thorough character development and her failure to rework material repeatedly.<ref name="Allardice, L 2012" />

In 1965 at age 24, Tyler had her first child, a daughter they named Tezh.  Two years later a second daughter, Mitra, was born.  About this time, the couple moved to Baltimore, MD as Taghi had finished his residency and obtained a position at the University of Maryland Medical School.<ref name="Bail, P. 1998" /> With the moves, the changes in jobs, and the raising of two young children, Tyler had little time or energy for writing and published nothing between 1965 and 1970.<ref name="Willrich, P. 1992" /> She settled comfortably in the city of Baltimore where she has remained and where she has set most of her subsequent novels.  Baltimore is generally considered to have a true mix of Southern and Northern culture. It also is an area of considerable Quaker presence, and Tyler eventually enrolled both her daughters in a local Friends school.<ref name="Bail, P. 1998" />  During this period she began writing literary reviews for journals, newspapers, etc. to provide the family with additional income; she would continue this employment until the late 1980s, writing approximately 250 reviews in total.<ref name="Croft, R. 1995" />  While this period was not productive for her writing career, Tyler does feel that this time enriched her spirit and her experience and in turn gave her subsequent writing greater depth, as she had "more of a self to speak from."<ref name="Tyler, A. 1980" />

Tyler began writing again in 1970 and had published three more novels by 1974: ''[[A Slipping-Down Life]]'', ''[[The Clock Winder]]'', and ''[[Celestial Navigation (novel)|Celestial Navigation]]''.  In her own opinion, her writing improved considerably during this period; with her children entering school, she was able to devote a great deal more focus to it than had been possible since she graduated from Duke.<ref name="Allardice, L 2012" />  With ''Celestial Navigation'', Tyler began to get national recognition: [[Gail Godwin]] gave it a very favorable review in the ''New York Times Review of Books''.<ref name="Bail, P. 1998" /> While she is not proud of her first four novels, Tyler considers this fifth novel one of her favorites.  It was a difficult book to write she notes, since it required rewriting draft after draft to truly develop her understanding of the characters.<ref name="Willrich, P. 1992" /> [[John Updike]] gave a favorable review to her next novel, ''[[Searching for Caleb]]'', writing: "Funny and lyric and true, exquisite in its details and ambitious in its design&nbsp;... This writer is not merely good, she is wickedly good."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1976/03/29/1976_03_29_110_TNY_CARDS_000106854 |title=Family Ways |magazine=The New Yorker |first=John|last=Updike|date=March 29, 1976 |access-date=April 1, 2015}}</ref> Afterwards he proceeded to take an interest in her work and reviewed her next four novels as well.<ref name="Bail, P. 1998" /> ''[[Morgan's Passing]]'' (1980) won the [[Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize]] for Fiction and was nominated for both the [[American Book Awards]] and the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]].<ref name="Bail, P. 1998" /> [[Joyce Carol Oates]] gave it good review in ''Mademoiselle'': "Fascinating&nbsp;... So unconventional a love story that it appears to take its protagonists themselves by surprise."<ref>Tyler, Anne (March 1983), ''Morgan's Passing''; Oates quoted in 1983 Berkley edition, New York: Berkley Publishing Group, p. 1.</ref>{{better source|date=July 2014}}