spring M - Department of English - University of Minnesota

Charles BaxterGift of Babble“As the Edelstein-KellerProfessor in Creative Writing,acclaimed writer Charles Baxteruses everything he’s learned duringhis 30 years of literary life”by Kate TylerBio TidbitsAs a young and struggling among others, the American Academy ofwriter, Charles Baxter Arts and Letters (1987), and even as hespurned an opportunity to savors reviews where the superlatives runstudy under fiction luminaries John Barth from ravishing to luminous, he has forgottenand Donald Barthelme, who were then none of the insecurity or toil of histeaching in Baxter’s English Ph.D. programat the State University of New York Ph.D. and heading to Wayne Stateapprentice years. After completing hisat Buffalo. “I wanted to be a writer so University to teach literature, he spentmuch,” recalls the author of Saul and Patsy, fully a decade reworking what he callsThe Feast of Love, and other critically laudedworks. “I feared that any criticism could suffering ink-curdling rejections (“Tell me“bad, highly abstract” drafts of novels andeasily deflate the fragile balloon of my ego. why I hate your novel,” began one memorablycruel phone call from a literaryTo some extent, too, it was just pridefuland stubborn on my part. I thought I agent) before landing a breakthroughwould learn on my own. You can, but it story and then a book, in 1984. He wastakes longer.”37.In the 30 years since then, Baxter has As the University’s Edelstein-Kellerbecome one of the most acclaimed and Professor in Creative Writing, Baxter useswidely anthologized authors in the country,with 15 published books to his credit, journey as a writer to make the joys comeeverything he’s learned during his 30-yearone of them (the 2001 novel The Feast of more quickly and the tribulations settleLove) a National Book Award finalist. Yet more gently for today’s aspiring novelistseven with his books translated into ten and poets. His arrival a year ago from theCEdmundlanguages, even as he is honored by,Whitecontinued on page 18ENGLISH AT MINNESOTAHomeA brick townhouse in the Lowry Hill neighborhoodof Minneapolis.FamilySpouse, Martha Baxter, a remedial educator;son, Daniel, 25, a civil engineer (“he buildsconcrete segmental cantilevered bridges inplaces that are ecologically fragile”); dog,Maggie, a 9-month-old Keeshond.Non-literary passionsHiking along the Superior Hiking Trail (LakeSuperior’s North Shore); bicycling; plays atTheatre de la Jeune Lune.Observation“If a novel or short story continues to resonate,it usually speaks to the condition ofthe culture and usually something slightlyinvisible in the culture—something we're notnoticing enough.”3