Introduction


Annie Dillard
“Promiscuous” is how Annie Dillard describes herself. Spiritually promiscuous, that is. Dillard grew up Presbyterian, but she rebelled against the church in her teens. The writings of C. S. Lewis brought her back into the fold, but after college she dabbled in several religions until she settled on Roman Catholicism, which she converted to in the 1990s. In her first novel, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Dillard blends themes of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Sufism. That book won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1974, when she was just 29 years old. Dillard has since written several other spiritual books (Holy the Firm and For the Time Being) as well as a memoir and two other novels.

Essential Facts

  1. Dillard has said that her college writing professor—and first husband—R. H. Dillard “taught her everything she knows.”
  2. Dillard began working on Pilgrim at Tinker Creek after recovering from a terrible case of pneumonia during which she nearly died.
  3. She spent almost a year transcribing her notes for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and completely isolated herself from the rest of society, often writing for over 15 hours a day.
  4. Dillard’s work has often been compared to that of Henry David Thoreau, on whom she wrote her 40-page master’s thesis in graduate school.
  5. Dillard recounted her younger years in the book An American Childhood. Her parents were free thinkers who brought her up to appreciate an eclectic array of pursuits—dancing, theater, music, even plumping!