Charles Baxter (author)
Charles Baxter (born May 13, 1947) is an American novelist, essayist, and poet.
Biography
Baxter was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to John and Mary Barber (Eaton) Baxter. He graduated from Macalester College in Saint Paul. In 1974 he received his PhD in English from the University at Buffalo with a thesis on Djuna Barnes, Malcolm Lowry, and Nathanael West.
Career
Teaching
Baxter taught high school in Pinconning, Michigan for a year before beginning his university teaching career at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He then moved to the University of Michigan, where for many years he directed the Creative Writing MFA program. He currently teaches at the University of Minnesota and in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.
Works
Novels
First Light (1987). An eminent astrophysicist and her brother, a small-town Buick salesman, discover how they grew so far apart and the bonds of love that still keep them together.
Shadow Play (1993). As his wife does gymnastics and magic tricks, his crazy mother invents her own vocabulary, and his aunt writes her own version of the Bible, Five Oaks Assistant City Manager Wyatt Palmer tries to live a normal life and nearly succeeds, but...