Sena Jeter Naslund

Sena Jeter Naslund
Born (1942-06-28) June 28, 1942 (age 82)
Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
EducationBirmingham–Southern College
Iowa Writers' Workshop (MA, PhD)
ParentsMarvin Luther Jeter
Flora Lee (Sims) Jeter

Sena Jeter Naslund (born June 28, 1942) is an American writer. She has published seven novels and two collections of short fiction. Her 1999 novel, Ahab's Wife, and her 2003 novel, Four Spirits, were each named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.[1][2] She is the Writer in Residence at University of Louisville[3] and the program director for the MFA in Writing at Spalding University in the same city.[4] In 2005, Governor Ernie Fletcher named Naslund Poet Laureate of Kentucky.[5][6]

Biography

Sena Kathryn Jeter was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1942 to Marvin Luther Jeter, a physician, who died when she was 15, and Flora Lee (Sims) Jeter, a music teacher.[7]

In 1964 she earned a bachelor's degree from Birmingham-Southern College. She completed her Master of Arts and PhD at the Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa.[5]

Thematically, much of Naslund's work explores women who are "marginalized or misunderstood."[5] In the bestselling[8][9] Ahab's Wife, for instance, Stacey D'Erasmo suggests

"Naslund has taken less than a paragraph's worth of references to the captain's young wife from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and fashioned from this slender rib not only a woman but an entire world. That world is a looking-glass version of Melville's fictional seafaring one, ruled by compassion as the other is by obsession, with a heroine who is as much a believer in social justice as the famous hero is in vengeance."[10]

She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, at St. James Court, in the former home of Kentucky poet Madison Cawein.[7]

Works

Short stories and novellas

  • Ice Skating at the North Pole: Stories (1989)
  • The Disobedience of Water: Stories and Novellas (1999)

Novels

  • Sherlock In Love (1993)
  • The Animal Way to Love (1993)
  • Ahab's Wife: or, The Star-Gazer (1999)
  • Four Spirits (2003)
  • Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette (2006)
  • Adam & Eve (2010)
  • The Fountain of St. James Court; or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman (2013)

References

  1. ^ "Notable Books 1999". New York Times. December 5, 1999. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  2. ^ "Notable Books 2003". New York Times. December 7, 2003. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  3. ^ "Faculty Page". Department of English. University of Louisville. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  4. ^ "Letter". MFA. Spalding University. Archived from the original on December 27, 2013. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  5. ^ a b c Dixon, Rob (August 18, 2011). "Sena Jeter Naslund". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Alabama Humanities Foundation. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  6. ^ Runyon, Keith (February 18, 2005). "Louisvillean named state's poet laureate". Courier-Journal. Louisville, Kentucky: Gannett. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  7. ^ a b Wadler, Joyce (October 19, 2006). "At Home with Sena Jeter Naslund". New York Times. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  8. ^ Dunn, Adam (November 3, 2000). "'Ahab's Wife' brings Sena Jeter Naslund epic success". CNN. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  9. ^ "Best Sellers". New York Times. January 14, 2001. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  10. ^ D'erasmo, Stacey (October 3, 1999). "Call me Una". New York Times. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
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