What We Talk About When We Talk About Love | Author Biography

Raymond Carver was born on May 25, 1938, in Clatskanie, Oregon. His father was a manual laborer, and Carver worked as a laborer at various jobs from the early 1950s through the late 1960s. In 1957, at the age of eighteen, he married sixteenyear- old Maryann Burk, who eventually became a teacher, and with whom he had two children within the first two years of their marriage. They moved to California, where Carver attended Humboldt State College (now California State University at Humboldt) and received his bachelor’s degree in English in 1963, while at the same time working in a sawmill to support his family. In 1966, Carver earned a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Iowa. His short story, ‘‘Will You Please Be Quiet Please?’’ was selected for The Best American Short Stories of 1967, an annual publication. His stories were selected for the O. Henry Award in 1973, 1974, 1975, and 1983. 1976 saw his first major book publication, a collection of stories written between 1962 and 1975 entitled, Will You Please Be Quiet Please?.

From 1971 to 1979, Carver taught at several colleges and universities, including: as a lecturer in creative writing at the University of California at Santa Cruz (1971–1972); as a lecturer in fiction writing at the University of California at Berkeley (1972–1973); as visiting professor of English at the Writers Workshop, University of Iowa (1973–1974); as a lecturer at the University of California at Santa Barbara (1974–1975); as a member of the faculty writing program at Goddard College (1977–1978); and as visiting distinguished writer at the University of Texas at El Paso (1978–1979).

Carver and Maryann separated in 1976 and he was hospitalized for his alcoholism four times between 1976 and 1977. In the summer of 1977, he quit drinking for good—one of his proudest achievements in life. His second major collection of short stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, was published in 1981. 1983 saw the publication of his third major collection, Cathedral. He and Maryann divorced in 1983; in 1988, he married poet Tess Gallagher. Carver died later that year of lung cancer at the age of 50. His fourth major story collection, Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories was published, shortly before his death. Several collections of his short stories and poems were published posthumously. Director Robert Altman adapted a number of Carver’s stories to the screen, combining them into a single narrative feature film as director of the movie entitled Short Cuts.