27 Facts About Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s.

Raymond Carver's father, a sawmill worker from Arkansas, was a fisherman and a heavy drinker.

Raymond Carver's brother, James Franklin Carver, was born in 1943.

Raymond Carver worked as a delivery man, janitor, library assistant, and sawmill laborer, while Maryann worked as an administrative assistant, high school English teacher, salesperson, and waitress.

Raymond Carver moved to Paradise, California, with his family in 1958 to be close to his mother-in-law.

Raymond Carver became interested in writing while attending Chico State College and enrolled in a creative writing course taught by the novelist John Gardner, then a recent doctoral graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, who became a mentor and had a major influence on Carver's life and career.

In 1961, Raymond Carver's first published story, "The Furious Seasons", appeared.

Raymond Carver continued his studies under the short story writer Richard Cortez Day beginning in autumn 1960 at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California.

Raymond Carver did all of the janitorial work in the first hour and then wrote through the rest of his shift.

Raymond Carver audited classes at what was then Sacramento State College, including workshops with poet Dennis Schmitz.

Raymond Carver briefly enrolled in the library science graduate program at the University of Iowa that summer but returned to California following the death of his father.

Raymond Carver took on another teaching job at the University of California, Berkeley that year and briefly rented a pied-a-terre in the city; this development was precipitated by his initiation of an extramarital affair with Diane Cecily, a University of Montana administrator and mutual friend of Kittredge who would subsequently marry Kinder.

The next year, after leaving Iowa City, Raymond Carver went to a treatment center to attempt to overcome his alcoholism, but continued drinking for another three years.

Raymond Carver describes, without a trace of rancor, what finally put her over the edge.

Raymond Carver tried to call me to talk about where we were.

Raymond Carver knew he was about to invite Tess to Thanksgiving.

In November 1977, Raymond Carver met the poet Tess Gallagher at a writers' conference in Dallas, Texas.

In 1980, the two moved to Syracuse, New York, where Gallagher had been appointed the coordinator of the creative writing program at Syracuse University; Raymond Carver taught as a professor in the English department.

Raymond Carver is buried at Ocean View Cemetery in Port Angeles, Washington.

Raymond Carver was nominated for the National Book Award for his first major-press collection, "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please" in 1977 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his third major-press collection, Cathedral, the volume generally perceived as his best.

In December 2006, Gallagher published an essay in The Sun magazine, titled "Instead of Dying", about alcoholism and Raymond Carver's having maintained his sobriety.

The nature of these stories, especially "Errand", have led to some speculation that Raymond Carver was preparing to write a novel.

Tess Gallagher fought with Knopf for permission to republish the stories in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love as they were originally written by Raymond Carver, as opposed to the heavily edited and altered versions that appeared in 1981 under the editorship of Gordon Lish.

The Raymond Carver Reading Series at Syracuse University is a reading series program which annually brings 12 to 14 prominent writers to the campus.

Raymond Carver described himself as "inclined toward brevity and intensity" and "hooked on writing short stories".

Raymond Carver never thought of himself as a minimalist or in any category, for that matter.

Raymond Carver's style has been described as dirty realism, which connected him with a group of writers in the 1970s and 1980s that included Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff with both of whom Raymond Carver was closely acquainted, as well as others such as Ann Beattie, Frederick Barthelme, and Jayne Anne Phillips.