Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) was born to a poor Ohio family and left school at age fourteen to do odd jobs. As an adult he was a laborer, soldier, copywriter, and manager until a mental breakdown forced him to pursue writing. His work focused on the psychological lives of characters emotionally crippled by isolation and lack of spiritual fulfillment, themes best expressed in his classic, Winesburg, Ohio. Married four times, Anderson died from peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick sliver in a martini olive. His epitaph: “Life, not death, is the great adventure.”
Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-cph.3b16123
WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:
- I Want to Know Why, a short story, in Fall 2016
- A Storyteller’s Story, a memoir, in Stories of the Week: 2015–2016
- Hands, a short story, in Stories of the Week: 2014–2015
- The Egg, a short story, in Fall 2010
- Death in the Woods, a short story, in Fall 2014