Editing Jane Smiley

{{Short description|American novelist (born 1949)}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Jane Smiley
| image         = Jane smiley 2009.jpg
| caption       = Smiley at the 2009 Texas Book Festival
| birth_date    = {{birth date and age|1949|9|26|mf=y}}
| birth_place   = [[Los Angeles]], [[California]], U.S.
| death_date    = 
| death_place   = 
| education     = [[Vassar College]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|AB]])<br>[[University of Iowa]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]], [[Master of Fine Arts|MFA]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
| awards        = [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]], 1992<br>American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2001
}}
'''Jane Smiley''' (born September 26, 1949) is an [[American novelist]]. She won the [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]] in 1992 for her novel ''[[A Thousand Acres]]'' (1991).<ref name=":0" />

==Biography==
Born in [[Los Angeles, California]], Smiley grew up in [[Webster Groves, Missouri]], a suburb of [[St. Louis, Missouri|St  Louis]], and  graduated from [[Community School (Missouri)|Community School]] and from [[John Burroughs School]]. She obtained an [[Bachelor of Arts|AB]] in literature at [[Vassar College]] (1971), then earned an MA (1975), [[Master of Fine Arts|MFA]] (1976) and [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]] (1978) from the [[University of Iowa]].<ref Name="Brit">[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1394560/Jane-Smiley Biography] at the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.</ref> While working toward her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in [[Iceland]] as a [[Fulbright Program|Fulbright Scholar]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Brandsma |first1=Elliott |title=Pulitzer Prize Winner Jane Smiley: "I Thought Icelanders Were Very Straightforward and Smart" |url=http://icelandwritersretreat.tumblr.com/post/129151761694/pulitzer-prize-winner-jane-smiley-i-thought |publisher=Iceland Writers Retreat |access-date=15 September 2021}}</ref> From 1981 to 1996 she was a Professor of English at [[Iowa State University]],<ref Name="Brit"/> teaching undergraduate and graduate creative-writing workshops. In 1996 she relocated to California. She returned to teaching creative writing at the [[University of California, Riverside]], in 2015.

===Career===
Smiley published her first novel, ''Barn Blind'', in [[1980 in literature|1980]], and won a 1985 [[O. Henry Award]] for her short story ‘Lily’, which was published in ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]''. Her best-selling ''[[A Thousand Acres]]'', a story based on [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[King Lear]]'', received the [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]] in [[1992 in literature|1992]]. It was adapted into a [[A Thousand Acres (film)|film of the same title]] in 1997. Her novella ''The Age of Grief'' was made into the [[2002 in film|2002]] film ''[[The Secret Lives of Dentists]]''. Her essay ‘Feminism Meets the Free Market’ was included in the 2006 anthology ''Mommy Wars''<ref>[http://www.mommywars.net Mommywars.net]</ref> by ''[[The Washington Post|Washington Post]]'' writer [[Leslie Morgan Steiner]]. Her essay ‘Why Bother?’ appears in the anthology ''Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, ''published by [[W. W. Norton & Company]] in 2013.
''Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel'' ([[2005 in literature|2005]]) is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of [[E. M. Forster]]'s seminal ''[[Aspects of the Novel]]'', and roams from eleventh century Japan's [[Murasaki Shikibu]]'s ''[[The Tale of Genji]]'' to 21st-century American women's literature.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

In 2001 Smiley was elected a member of [[The American Academy of Arts and Letters]]. She has participated in the annual [[Los Angeles Times Festival of Books|''Los Angeles Times'' Festival of Books]], the [[Cheltenham Literature Festival|Cheltenham Festival]], the [[National Book Festival]], the [[Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts]] and many others. She won the [[PEN Center USA|PEN USA]] Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006,<ref name="PEN Award">{{cite web | url=http://www.penusa.org/awards/winners | title=Winners | publisher=PEN Center USA | access-date=7 March 2015 | archive-date=20 December 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220164040/http://www.penusa.org/awards/winners | url-status=dead }}</ref> and chaired the judges' panel for the prestigious [[Man Booker International Prize]] in 2009.<ref>[http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1193 Man Booker Prize] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091008102457/http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1193 |date=2009-10-08 }}</ref>

[[Jonathan Franzen]], author of ''[[The Corrections]]'' (2001), considers Smiley's book ''The Greenlanders'' to be greatly underappreciated and among the best works of contemporary American fiction.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu5SGGzHWro|title=Jonathan Franzen on Underappreciated Books|website=[[YouTube]]|date=20 April 2012 }}</ref>

[[File:The colourful and talented Jane Smiley, speaking on her most recent novel, "Some Luck." (15654225655).jpg|thumb|200px|Jane Smiley speaking at the [[Vancouver Writers Fest]] on her 2014 novel, ''Some Luck'']]

Smiley then wrote a trilogy of novels about an Iowa family over the course of generations. The first novel of the trilogy, ''Some Luck'', was published in 2014 by [[Random House]].<ref name="NPR">{{cite web | url=https://www.npr.org/2014/10/05/353528012/for-her-first-trilogy-jane-smiley-returns-to-iowa-where-the-roots-are | title=For Her First Trilogy, Jane Smiley Returns To Iowa, 'Where The Roots Are' | publisher=[[NPR]] | work=NPR Books | date=5 October 2014 | access-date=7 March 2015 | author=Neary, Lynn}}</ref> The second volume followed in the spring of 2015 and the third volume in the fall of 2015.

Smiley's ''A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck'' has been compared to English author [[Jilly Cooper|Jilly Cooper's]] 2010 novel ''[[Jump!]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=McManus |first=Phil |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Global_Horseracing_Industry/G9bptQhQBQsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Jump!+jilly+cooper&pg=PA30&printsec=frontcover |title=The Global Horseracing Industry: Social, Economic, Environmental, and Ethical Perspectives |last2=Albrecht |first2=Glenn |last3=Graham |first3=Raewyn |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-67731-8 |pages=30 |language=en}}</ref>''

==Awards==
Smiley received the [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]] in 1992.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=2020|title=The 1992 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Fiction|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jane-smiley|access-date=2020-10-27|website=The Pulitzer Prizes|language=en}}</ref> In 2006 she received the Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, which is given annually in Rockville, Maryland, the city where Fitzgerald, his wife and his daughter are buried, as part of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival.

==Works==
===Novels===
*''Barn Blind'' (1980)
*''At Paradise Gate'' (1981)
*''Duplicate Keys'' (1984)
*''[[The Greenlanders]]'' (1988)
*''[[A Thousand Acres]]'' (1991)
*''[[Moo (novel)|Moo]]'' (1995)
*''The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton'' (1998)
*''[[Horse Heaven (novel)|Horse Heaven]]'' (2000)
*''Good Faith'' (2003)
*''Ten Days in the Hills'' (2007)
*''Private Life'' (2010)
*''[[Some Luck (novel)|Some Luck]]'' (2014)
*''Early Warning'' (April, 2015)
*''Golden Age'' (October 20, 2015)
*''[[Perestroika in Paris]]'' (2020)
*''[[A Dangerous Business]]'' (2022)
*''Lucky'' (2024)

===Short story collections===
*''The Age of Grief'' (1987)
*''Ordinary Love & Good Will'' (1989)

===Non-fiction books===
*''Catskill Crafts'' (1988)
*''Charles Dickens'' (2003)
*''A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck'' (2004)
*''Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel'' (2005)
*''[[The Man Who Invented the Computer]]'' (2010)

===Young adult novels===
* ''The Georges and the Jewels'' (2009)
* ''A Good Horse'' (2010)
* ''True Blue'' (2011)
* ''Pie in the Sky'' (2012)
* ''Gee Whiz'' (2013)
* ''Riding Lessons'' (2018)
* ''Saddles and Secrets'' (2019)
* ''Taking the Reins'' (2020)

===Children's books===
* ''Twenty Yawns'' (2016)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{C-SPAN|48751}}
*{{Charlie Rose view|333}}
*{{IMDb name|0806959}}
*{{Guardian topic}}
*{{NYTtopic|people/s/jane_smiley}}
* [http://slate.com/id/2109218/ 2004 Slate article: "The unteachable ignorance of the red states"]
* [http://writetv.okstate.edu/bestofWOL.html ''Write TV'' Public Television Interview with Jane Smiley] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161206170130/http://writetv.okstate.edu/bestofWOL.html |date=2016-12-06 }}
* [http://www.identitytheory.com/interviews/birnbaum111.html 2003 interview of Jane Smiley, IdentityTheory]
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120401231313/http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/jane-smileys-good-faith/ 'Jane Smiley's Good Faith']}}, review of ''Good Faith'' in the ''[[Oxonian Review]]''
* [https://archive.today/20130129010133/http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/archives/2010/2010-May-13/in-her-new-novel-iprivate-lifei-the-pulitzer-prizewinning-author-uses-family-history-as-fictional-fodder/1/@@index 2010 Monterey Weekly article: "In her new novel, ''Private Life'', the Pulitzer Prize-winning author uses family history as fictional fodder."]
*[http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw920526jane_smiley KCRW Bookworm Interview]
* {{Internet Archive author |sname= Jane Smiley}}
{{PulitzerPrize Fiction 1976–2000}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smiley, Jane}}
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American women novelists]]
[[Category:American women short story writers]]
[[Category:American literary critics]]
[[Category:American women literary critics]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners]]
[[Category:O. Henry Award winners]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Iowa State University faculty]]
[[Category:People from Webster Groves, Missouri]]
[[Category:Novelists from Missouri]]
[[Category:1949 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Vassar College alumni]]
[[Category:University of Iowa alumni]]
[[Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty]]
[[Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American women writers]]
[[Category:American women mystery writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from Iowa]]
[[Category:American women non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American women academics]]
[[Category:John Burroughs School alumni]]
[[Category:National Book Critics Circle Award winners]]