'The delicious promise of a riveting tale'

 

 

“I can think of no other experiencequite like that of being 20 or so pages into a book and realizing that this isthe real thing: a book that is going to offer the delicious promise of ariveting story, arresting language and characters that will haunt me for days.” –Anita Shreve

 

Born in Boston in 1946, Shreve wrotethose kinds of books herself, including the mega-bestsellers ThePilot’s Wife, Testimony and The Weight of Water, allalso made into successful movies.  She began writing fictionin the 1960s while still a high school student and one of her early shortstories, Past the Island, Drifting, was named for the prestigiousO. Henry Prize while she was still a teen.  

 

Shreve, who died from cancer in2018, combined her creative writing with teaching and working as a journalistin the U.S. and Africa before writing The Pilot’s Wife in1999.  That book catapulted Shreve into her successful full-timewriting career that resulted in 19 novels with millions of sales worldwide.

                                            

 Shreve wrote all of her books in longhand, andin an interview with The Writer magazine explained why shethought writing in longhand was the best thing any author could do.

 

“The creative impulse, the thingthat gets deep inside me, goes from the brain to thefingertips.  When you’re writing by hand, even when you’re notconsciously thinking about it, you’re constructing sentences in the best waypossible.”