Porter Shreve
Encyclopedia
Porter Shreve is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author, and professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

.

Life

He graduated from American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...

, and from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

 Creative Writing MFA Program in 1998, where he studied with Charles Baxter
Charles Baxter
Charles Baxter is an American author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry.-Life:Baxter was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to John and Mary Barber Baxter. He graduated from Macalester College in Saint Paul, and taught high school in Pinconning, Michigan, for a year. In 1974 he received his Ph.D...

 and Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore is an American fiction writer known mainly for her humorous and poignant short stories.-Biography:...

. He has taught at several American universities, including the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...

 and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26...

.

Family

On June 1, 2002, he married the memoirist and fiction writer Bich Minh Nguyen
Bich Minh Nguyen
Bich Minh Nguyen is an American novelist. She won a 2010 American Book Award, for Short Girls.-Life:She immigrated with her family to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1975....

, author of Stealing Buddha's Dinner and Short Girls. They live in West Lafayette, Indiana
West Lafayette, Indiana
As of the census of 2010, there were 29,596 people, 12,591 households, and 3,588 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,381.1 people per square mile . The racial makeup of the city was 74.3% White, 17.3% Asian, 2.7% African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.03% Pacific...

 and Chicago, Illinois.

Career

Shreve's first novel, The Obituary Writer, about a young journalist in 1989 St. Louis who gets in over his head when a young widow asks him to pursue her story, was a 2000 New York Times Notable Book, a Book Sense Pick, and a Borders Original Voices selection. The New York Times called the novel "an involving and sneakily touching story whose twists feel less like the conventions of a genre than the convolutions of a heart - any heart." Shreve's second novel, Drives Like a Dream, about an empty nest mother in Detroit who hatches a scheme to lure her far-flung children home, was a 2005 Chicago Tribune Book of the Year, a People "Great Reads" Selection and a Britannica Book of the Year. The Washington Post called Drives Like a Dream “a beautiful novel, carefully put together, full of charming secondary characters, charitable to all.”

Shreve's third novel, When the White House Was Ours, was published during the 2008 presidential campaign
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...

 and touches upon previous election years, including 2000 and 1976. The Washington Post wrote, "Coming-of-age tales that hark back to lovable, quaint times all too often cover the landscape and the characters with a thick dusting of powdered sugar. But Shreve avoids sentimental sludge with the masterly voice of Daniel, the anxious boy historian who tries to keep order in his fractured life by soberly documenting it, zany detail by zany detail. As we recover from our own sugar high of the 2008 election, 'When the White House Was Ours' offers a perfect antidote. Turn off the TV pundits, turn down the thermostat, and slip on a comfy cardigan."

Shreve has also co-edited three essay anthologies with Susan Shreve
Susan Shreve
Susan Richards Shreve is an American professor, author, and novelist, as well as author of over a dozen children's books. She currently teaches at George Mason University....

: Outside the Law; How We Want to Live; and Tales Out of School; and three textbook anthologies with Bich Minh Nguyen.

Novels

  • The Obituary Writer (2000)
  • Drives Like a Dream (2005)
  • When the White House Was Ours (2008)

Anthologies

  • Outside the Law: Narratives on Justice in America (1997)
  • How We Want to Live (1998)
  • Tales Out of School: Contemporary Writers on Their Student Years (2000)
  • The Contemporary American Short Story (2003)
  • Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: I & Eye (2004)
  • 30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (2005)

External links

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