Carol Anshaw

{{short description|American novelist and short story writer|bot=PearBOT 5}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Carol Anshaw

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1946|03|22}}

| birth_place = Grosse Pointe, Michigan, U.S.

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Novelist
short story writer
painter

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| language = English

| education = Michigan State University (BA)
Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA)

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| spouse = {{marriage|Jessie Ewing|2014|end=div}}

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| website = {{URL|www.carolanshaw.com}}

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}}Carol Anshaw (born March 22, 1946) is an American novelist and short story writer. Publishing Triangle named her debut novel, Aquamarine, one of "The Triangle's 100 Best" gay and lesbian novels.{{Cite web|title=Best Lesbian and Gay Novels|url=https://publishingtriangle.org/best-lesbian-gay-novels/|access-date=2022-02-23|website=The Publishing Triangle|language=en-US}} Her novels have won the Carl Sandburg Award, the Society of Midland Authors Award and have been finalists four times for Lambda Literary Awards,{{Cite web|date=1993-07-14|title=5th Annual Lambda Literary Awards|url=https://lambdaliterary.org/1993/07/lambda-literary-awards-1992/|access-date=2022-01-18|website=Lambda Literary|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Antonio|first=Gonzalez Cerna|date=1997-07-15|title=9th Annual Lambda Literary Awards|url=https://lambdaliterary.org/1997/07/lambda-literary-awards-1996/|url-status=live|access-date=2022-01-18|website=Lambda Literary|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804135708/https://www.lambdaliterary.org/1997/07/lambda-literary-awards-1996/ |archive-date=2020-08-04 }}{{Cite web|last=Gonzalez Cerna|first=Antonio|date=2003-07-10|title=15th Annual Lambda Literary Awards|url=https://lambdaliterary.org/2003/07/lambda-literary-awards-2002/|url-status=live|access-date=2022-01-18|website=Lambda Literary|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200506234143/https://www.lambdaliterary.org/2003/07/lambda-literary-awards-2002/ |archive-date=2020-05-06 }}{{Cite web|date=2013-06-04|title=25th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners Announced!|url=https://lambdaliterary.org/2013/06/25th-annual-lambda-literary-award-winners-announced/|access-date=2022-01-11|website=Lambda Literary|language=en}} and Lucky in the Corner won the 2003 Ferro-Grumley Award.{{Cite web|title=The Ferro-Grumley Awards|url=https://publishingtriangle.org/awards/ferro-grumley-awards/|access-date=2022-02-23|website=The Publishing Triangle|language=en-US}}

Personal life

Carol Anshaw was born on March 22, 1946, in Grosse Pointe, Michigan."Carol Anshaw" in the U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2 Her mother was Virginia Anshaw Stanley and her father was Henry G. Stanley. During Anshaw's childhood and adolescence, her family lived in Michigan and Florida.{{Cite web|last=Rolle|first=Elisa|date=22 March 2015|title=Carol Anshaw & Jessie Ewing|url=https://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3514899.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150604202248/http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3514899.html |archive-date=2015-06-04 |access-date=2020-12-02|website=Reviews-and-Ramblings|language=en}}

Anshaw received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Michigan State University in 1968. After graduation, she moved to Chicago.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} She acquired her Master of Fine Arts degree at Vermont College of Fine Arts in 1992.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}}

In 1969, she married Charles White. The couple divorced in 1985.

Since 1996 Anshaw has been partners with the documentary maker and photographer, Jessie Ewing. They were married on May 25, 2014.{{cite web|url=http://www.chicagogayhistory.com/biography.html?id=834|title=Carol Anshaw & Jessie Ewing |publisher=Chicago Gay History|accessdate=September 25, 2012}} Now, the couple divides their time between Chicago and Amsterdam.{{Cite web|title=Carol Anshaw {{!}} About|url=https://www.carolanshaw.com/about|access-date=2020-12-02|website=www.carolanshaw.com}}

Career

Anshaw has been writing fiction since 1972. Her stories have appeared in Story magazine, Tin House, and have been selected three times for inclusion in The Best American Stories [1992, 1994 2012]'and Do Me: Tales of Sex and Love from Tin House.{{Cite web|date=2012-03-16|title=The Parlor » Carol Anshaw|url=http://theparlorreads.com/authors/carol-anshaw/|access-date=2020-12-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316161246/http://theparlorreads.com/authors/carol-anshaw/|archive-date=2012-03-16}}

She has published five novels. Her first, the critically acclaimed Aquamarine (1992) explores one life lived on parallel paths.{{Cite news|last=Kakutani|first=Michiko|date=2012-03-12|title=One Death That Haunts Many Lives (Published 2012)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/books/carry-the-one-a-novel-by-carol-anshaw.html|access-date=2020-12-02|issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite web|last=Coates|first=Joseph|date=2 February 1992|title=ONE WOMAN - THREE LIVES|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-02-02-9201100384-story.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-02|website=Chicago Tribune|language=en-US}}

Perhaps Anshaw's most popular novel,Carry the One (2012), has been highly regarded as a portrait of grief and American culture.{{Cite web|last=Straight|first=Susan|date=10 March 2012|title='Carry the One' by Carol Anshaw - The Boston Globe|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2012/03/11/carry-one-carol-anshaw/vp2WJYioNylEQJIgG6OEYI/story.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304062703/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2012/03/11/carry-one-carol-anshaw/vp2WJYioNylEQJIgG6OEYI/story.html |archive-date=2016-03-04 |access-date=2020-12-02|website=BostonGlobe|language=en-US}} The novel received warm endorsements from Emma Donoghue and Alison Bechdel.{{Cite news|last=Brownrigg|first=Sylvia|date=2012-03-23|title=A Wedding and a Funeral (Published 2012)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/carry-the-one-a-novel-by-carol-anshaw.html|access-date=2020-12-02|issn=0362-4331}} Set mainly in Chicago, Anshaw deftly takes the narrative's point of view from character to character, showing "how time affects relationships, tipping emotional dominoes one way or another within a family or circle of friends."

a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship; an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship; a Carl Sandburg Award, a Ferro-Grumley Award and Society of Midland Authors Award.

For her criticism in the Village Voice, she won the National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

Anshaw was, for 20 years, on the faculty of the MFA program at SAIC,the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Anshaw is also a painter, and is currently working on a sequence of paintings of the English Channel swimmer, Gertrude Ederle. "Walking Through Leaves," her painted biography of the novelist and poet, Vita Sackville-West was put up in November 2013 at Rockford University, Rockford, IL.{{Cite web|title=Carol Anshaw {{!}} Paintings|url=https://www.carolanshaw.com/paintings|access-date=2020-12-02|website=www.carolanshaw.com}}{{Cite web|last=Casper|first=Monica J.|date=16 May 2014|title=Feminists We Love: Carol Anshaw – The Feminist Wire|url=https://thefeministwire.com/2014/05/feminists-love-carol-anshaw/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140519072041/http://thefeministwire.com:80/2014/05/feminists-love-carol-anshaw/ |archive-date=2014-05-19 |access-date=2020-12-02|website=The Feminist Wire|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|title=Carol Anshaw|url=http://www.joyharrisliterary.com/carolanshaw|access-date=2020-12-02|website=The Joy Harris Literary Agency, Inc.|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|last=Lehoczky|first=Etelka|date=11 June 2002|title=Lucky in Chicago: Carol Anshaw Celebrates Life and Love in the Second City with Her New Novel, Lucky in the Corner|url=https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-87025009/lucky-in-chicago-carol-anshaw-celebrates-life-and|website=|publisher=The Advocate}}{{dead link|date=July 2021}}

Awards

Publishing Triangle named Aquamarine one of "The Triangle's 100 Best" gay and lesbian novels of the 1990s.

1993: Society of Midland Authors Award for Fiction{{Cite web|title=Past Winners|url=https://midlandauthors.org/past-winners/|access-date=February 23, 2022 |website=The Society of Midland Authors}} for Aquamarine
2003: Ferro-Grumley Award for Lucky in the Corner
2013: San Francisco Book Festival for General Fiction{{Cite web|title=Winners List |url=http://www.sanfranciscobookfestival.com/winners_2012.htm |access-date=February 23, 2022 |website=San Francisco Book Festival}} for Carry the One

Works

Aquamarine (1992)
Seven Moves (1996)
Lucky in the Corner (2002)
Carry the One (2012)
Right After the Weather (2019)

= Anthology contributions =

The Best American Short Stories 1994, edited by Tobias Wolff and Katrina Kenison (1994)
The Best American Short Stories 1998, edited by Garrison Keillor and Katrina Kenison(1998)
The Best American Short Stories 2012, edited by Tom Perrotta and Heidi Pitlor (2012)