What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. was born in Oregon in 1938 and died 50 years later in Washington. He is best known as a short story writer, although he also wrote prose and poetry. After marrying young and having a daughter, Carver took a creative writing course taught by the novelist John Gardner at Chico State College, now known as California State University. Gardner, best known for writing Grendel, a 1971 retelling of Beowulf from the monster’s point of view, was a huge influence on Carver. Gardner taught him the importance of authenticity in writing, with Carver later claiming:

[I]f the words and the sentiments were dishonest, the author was faking it, writing about things he didn’t care about or believe in, then nobody could ever care anything about it (Carver, Raymond, Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose, 2001, p. 113).

In 1961, Carver published his first short story, “The Furious Seasons,” which owed more to American writer William Faulkner than to the later pared-back style with which he is best well-known. He received his BA in General Studies from Humboldt Stage College, California. He failed to complete an MA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and falsely claimed he successfully completed an MFA here.