Literature
Charles Baxter
born 1947 · novelist, short-story writer, essayist, teacher
Novelist of The Feast of Love who began his university teaching career at Wayne State in Detroit and set much of his Michigan-rooted fiction nearby.
- Born
Minneapolis, Minnesota
age 79- Birth name
- Charles Morley Baxter
- Detroit years
- 1974–1989
- Field
- Literature
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Baxter, a Minnesotan, taught high school for a year in Pinconning, Michigan, before joining the English faculty of Wayne State University in Detroit, where he spent the formative years of his writing life in the 1970s and 1980s and published his first story collections. He then moved to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, directing its MFA program in creative writing, before returning to Minnesota. Many of his stories and novels, including First Light, Shadow Play and The Feast of Love, are set in small and mid-sized Michigan towns such as his invented Five Oaks, and his essays on craft, Burning Down the House, are standard reading in writing programs.
Highlights
- The Feast of Love (2000), a National Book Award finalist
- Story collections Harmony of the World and Believers
- Essay collection Burning Down the House (1997)
- Taught at Wayne State University before the University of Michigan
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1974–1989
Wayne State University
Where he began his university teaching career in the English department.