Bobbie Ann Mason (born May 1, 1940) is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary critic from

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

. Her memoir was a finalist for the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

Early life and education

A child of Wilburn and Christina Mason, Bobbie Ann Mason grew up on her family's dairy farm outside of

Mayfield, Kentucky Mayfield is a home rule–class city and the county seat of Graves County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 10,017 as of the 2020 United States Census. History 19th century Mayfield is in the center of the Jackson Purchase, an ei ...

with four siblings and her great niece Mya Mason. As a child she loved to read with encouragement from her parents; however, choices were limited. These books were mostly popular fiction about the

Bobbsey Twins The Bobbsey Twins are the principal characters of what was, for 75 years, the Stratemeyer Syndicate's longest-running series of American children's novels, written under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope. The first of 72 books was published in 1904, t ...

and the

Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Cre ...

mysteries. She would later write a book about these books she read in adolescence titled ''The Girl Sleuth: A feminist guide to the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Their Sisters''. Mason credits her time at a grade school in Cuba, Kentucky with influencing her adult fictional characters. After high school, Mason went on to major in English at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...

. After graduating in 1962, she worked for a

fan magazine A fan magazine is a commercially written and published magazine intended for the amusement of fans of the popular culture subject matter which it covers. It is distinguished from a scholarly, literary or trade magazine on the one hand, by the ta ...

publisher in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, writing articles about various stars who were in the spotlight for movie magazines that Mason describes as "fluff." She earned her master's degree at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1966. Next she went to graduate school at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

, where she subsequently received her Ph.D. in literature with a dissertation on

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

's ''Ada'' in 1972. Her dissertation was published as ''Nabokov's Garden'' two years later while Mason taught at Mansfield State College (now

Mansfield University Mansfield University of Pennsylvania is a campus of Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania and it is located it in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. Part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), the campus' total enrollment is 1,63 ...

Career

By the time she was in her late thirties, Mason started to write short stories. In 1980, ''

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 issues ...

'' published her first story. "It took me a long time to discover my material", she said. "It wasn't a matter of developing writing skills, it was a matter of knowing how to see things. And it took me a very long time to grow up. I'd been writing for a long time, but was never able to see what there was to write about. I always aspired to things away from home, so it took me a long time to look back at home and realize that that's where the center of my thought was." Mason has written about the working-class people of Western Kentucky, and her short stories have contributed to a renaissance of regional fiction in America creating a literary style that critics have labeled "shopping mall realism." Mason then went on to write a collection of short stories, '' Shiloh and Other Stories''. In 1985, she published her first novel, '' In Country'', which eventually was made into a feature film (see below). She followed ''In Country'' with another novel in 1988, ''Spence and Lila''. She has since published several more short story collections (see below). In 2016, Mason became the second living author to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. Mason's dissertation, a critique of

's '' Ada or Ardor'', was published in 1974. A year later, she published ''The Girl Sleuth'', a feminist assessment of

, the

, and other fictional girl detectives. Mason's first volume of short stories, '' Shiloh and Other Stories'', appeared in 1982 and won the 1983

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

Foundation Award for outstanding first works of fiction. Mason's novel ''In Country'' is often cited as one of the seminal literary works of the 1980s. Its protagonist attempts to come to terms with a number of important generational issues, ranging from the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

to consumer culture. A film version was produced in 1989, starring

Emily Lloyd Emily Alice Lloyd-Pack (born 29 September 1970), known as Emily Lloyd, is an English actress. At the age of 16, she starred in her debut and breakthrough role in the 1987 film ''Wish You Were Here'', for which she received critical acclaim an ...

as the protagonist and

Bruce Willis Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series ''Moonlighting'' (1985–1989) and appeared in over a hundred films, gaining recognition as an action hero a ...

as her uncle. Her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines, including ''

The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', '' Mother Jones'', ''

'', and ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phi ...

''. Mason has received a

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 federal ...

Fellowship and a

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 art ...

. She was a

writer in residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

at the University of Kentucky until 2011. Her short story "Wish" appears in ''The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women''. ''Patchwork: A Bobbie Ann Mason Reader'' was published in 2018.

Selected works

;Short story collections *'' Shiloh and Other Stories'' (1982) *''Love Life''. Harper & Row, New York (1989) *''Midnight Magic'' (1998) *''Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail'' (2002) *''Nancy Culpepper'' (2006) ;Novels *'' In Country'' (1985) *''Feather Crowns'' (1993) *''An Atomic Romance'' (2005) *''The Girl in the Blue Beret'' (2011) *''Dear Ann'' (2020) ;Novella *''Spence + Lila'' (1988) ;Memoir *''Clear Springs: A Memoir'' (1999) ;Biography *''Elvis Presley'' (2002) ;Criticism * ''Nabokov's Garden'' (1974) * ''The Girl Sleuth: A Feminist Guide'' (1975)

Awards

* PEN/Hemingway Award, 1983 * National Endowment for the Arts award, 1983 * Pennsylvania Arts Council grant, 1983, 1989 * Guggenheim Fellowship, 1984 * Kentucky Governor's Award in the Arts, 2012 * Kentucky Literary Award, 2004, 2012

References

External links