Frances Sherwood (June 4, 1940 – April 27, 2021) was an American writer, novelist, and educator. Sherwood published four novels and one book of short stories. Her 1992 novel, ''Vindication'', was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been translated into twelve languages.

Biography

Born June 4, 1940, in Washington, DC, and raised in

Monterey, California Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...

, Sherwood was the daughter of William and Barbara Sherwood. She married photographer Fred Slaski in 1995. Sherwood had three children from a previous marriage to Reynold Madoo. Reynold Madoo is from Trinidad and was a student with her at Howard University in the early 1960s. They were married for over 20 years. Sherwood attended Howard University in the early 1960s on an Agnes and Eugene Meyer Scholarship before earning her B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1967. She then pursued graduate study at New York University. She earned an M.A. in creative writing at The Johns Hopkins University in 1975. She continued the study of fiction writing at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

after winning a

Stegner Fellowship The Stegner Fellowship program is a two-year creative writing fellowship at Stanford University. The award is named after American Wallace Stegner (1909–1993), a historian, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and Stanford faculty mem ...

in 1976 (as Frances Madoo). Sherwood's first book-length publication was a short story collection, ''Everything You’ve Heard Is True'' (1989). She went on to publish four novels: ''Vindication'' (1992), ''Green'' (1995), ''The Book of Splendor'' (2002) and ''Night of Sorrows'' (2006). Sherwood had two stories included in O. Henry Award collections (1989, 1992) and one story in The Best American Short Stories (2000, selected by E. L. Doctorow). Twenty-four of her short stories have been published in magazines, including '' The Atlantic Monthly'' ("Basil the Dog," September 1999), '' Zoetrope'', and '' TriQuarterly''. "Basil the Dog" was nominated for a

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of profe ...

for Best Short Story in 1999. In 1986, Sherwood was hired as an assistant professor of English at Indiana University South Bend, where she taught creative writing and journalism. She was promoted to professor of English in 1994. Frances Sherwood said she considered herself a "new historical" novelist, a writer who displaces current political and psychological issues onto earlier times and exotic locales. Sherwood died on April 27, 2021, in South Bend, Indiana.

Bibliography

Novels

* ''Vindication'' (novel),

Farrar, Straus Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitze ...

(New York, NY), 1993. * ''Green'' (novel), Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1995. * ''The Book of Splendor'' (novel), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2002. * ''Night of Sorrows'', W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2006.

Story collections

* ''Everything You've Heard Is True'' (short stories),

Johns Hopkins University Press The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publi ...

(Baltimore, MD), 1989.

Anthologies

* "History," in ''Prize Stories 1989: The O. Henry Awards'', William Abraham, ed., Anchor Books, 1989. * "Demiurges," in ''Prize Stories 1992: The O. Henry Awards'', William Abraham, ed., Anchor Books, 1992. * "Basil the Dog," in ''The Best American Short Stories 2000'', Katrina Kenison and E.L. Doctorow, eds., Mariner Books, 2000. * "History," in ''So the Story Goes: Twenty-Five Years of the Johns Hopkins Short Fiction Series'', John T. Irwin and Jean McGarry, eds., Johns Hopkins UP, 2005.

Notes

External links

Biography in ''Encyclopedia.com''

"Basil the Dog" in the ''Atlantic Monthly''

''Publishers Weekly'' review of ''Vindication''

* ttp://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/bookworm/frances-sherwood Bookworm radio interview of Frances Sherwood on ''The Book of Splendor'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Sherwood, Frances Brooklyn College alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Stanford University alumni 1940 births Living people American women novelists University of Notre Dame faculty Novelists from Indiana 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century short story writers 21st-century American short story writers Stegner Fellows American women academics