Ann Beattie

Biography

Ann Beattie is the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rea Award for the Short Story, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short stories have been published in four O. Henry Prize collections, as well as in John Updike’s The Best American Short Stories of the Century. Beattie’s numerous books include The State We’re In: Maine Stories (Scribner, 2015) and The New Yorker: Stories (Scribner, 2010).

See Work

FICTION / Fall 2015

Other People’s Birthdays

By Ann Beattie ,  Illustration by Gosia Herba

Whatever it took to make it an arduous trip, and of course you couldn’t say the obvious, you had to smile and say there were worse problems blah blah blah. The mediocre glass of wine for thirteen dollars at the airport bar was one of them...
FICTION / Summer 2013

The Debt

By Ann Beattie

The plane landed in Fort Lauderdale and Dick and Royce (Royal) were picked up by a pretty young woman wearing a tank top, shorts, and silver antlers and driven to Hertz. Royal’s brother Brandt arranged such things—or his secretary Jacki did...

Erich Hartmann/ Magnum Photos
FICTION / Summer 1994

Fireback

By Ann Beattie

In 1979, when I was for two years an instructor at the University of New Hampshire, I had a student—a bright, anxious, but always attentive student—named Charles Fortunesky. He was taller than most of the others, and seemed to enjoy a comic...

FICTION / Summer 1976

Eric Clapton’s Lover

By Ann Beattie

Franklin Fisher and his wife, Beth, were born on the same day of March, two years apart. Franklin was 39 years old, and Beth was 41. Beth liked chiles relenos, Bass ale, gazpacho; Franklin liked mild foods: soufflés, quiche, pea soup. How...

FICTION / Winter 1987

Mermaids

By Ann Beattie

Last September, Christine had gone back to college to study literature. The previous June, her lover had told her that he was transferring to Brookline, Massachusetts. She knew before she asked that he did not want her to go with him.