NYS WRITERS INSTITUTE
HOME PAGE

NEW YORK STATE
AUTHOR & POET AWARDS

MARY GORDON

NEW YORK STATE
EDITH WHARTON CITATION OF MERIT
STATE AUTHOR AWARD WINNER 2008-2010

Mary Gordon has been named New York’s new State Author and Jean Valentine has been named New York’s new State Poet for 2008-2010. The citations, established in 1985 by the governor and state legislature to promote fiction and poetry within the state, are awarded biennially under the aegis of the New York State Writers Institute.

Mary Gordon, one of America’s most admired prose writers, is the author of several bestselling novels, as well as short stories, memoirs, essays, and criticism. Gordon is known for work that explores Irish American family life, single motherhood, Catholic spirituality, thwarted love, moral struggle, personal sacrifice, and female identity. She is often praised for her deep insights, lyrical writing, and what “Los Angeles Times” critic Ellen Akins called, “her delicate rendering of the drama of consciousness.”

Gordon’s latest work includes the memoir “Circling My Mother” (2007), the collection “The Stories of Mary Gordon” (2006), and the novel “Pearl” (2005), the story of a single mother who sets out to prevent her only daughter, Pearl, from killing herself in a self-imposed hunger strike.

Other recent books by Gordon include the biography, “Joan of Arc” (2000); the essay collection, “Seeing Through Places: Reflections on Geography and Identity” (2000); the novel, “Spending: A Utopian Divertimento” (1998); the bestselling memoir of her secretive, tormented father, “The Shadow Man” (1996), and the essay collection “Good Boys and Dead Girls” (1992).

Gordon’s other acclaimed novels include “The Other Side” (1989), “Men and Angels” (1985), “The Company of Women” (1981), and “Final Payments” (1978).

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.