Mrs. Nixon A Novelist Imagines a Life

Beattie delivers an original work about Pat Nixon--a riveting exploration of an elusive and modern icon and of the fiction writer's art. Mrs. Nixon, once a community theater actress, understood the world, in part, from some of the roles she played. Beattie puts her on stage again, to try to understand what her thoughts may have been--from the perspective of a fiction writer.

Ann Beattie has been included in four O. Henry Award Collections, in John Updike’s The Best American Short Stories of the Century, and in Jennifer Egan’s The Best American Short Stories 2014. In 2000, she received the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. She was the Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. She is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Maine and Key West, Florida.