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Bette Howland (January 28, 1937 – December 13, 2017) was an American writer and literary critic. She wrote for Commentary Magazine.

Biography

Born Bette Lee Sotonoff to Sam Sotonoff, a machinist, and Jessie Berger, a homemaker, she focused much of her work on her native Chicago, though she left the city in 1975.

In 1956, she married Howard Howland, a biologist. The couple had two sons but later separated and divorced, though she kept his surname. She worked as a librarian and did editorial work for the University of Chicago Press. She was a protegee, and sometime lover of Saul Bellow.

Howland died on December 13, 2017, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, aged 80, while living near one of her sons, the philosopher Jacob Howland.

Critical reappraisal

In 2013 editor Brigid Hughes found Howland's book W-3 and decided to include some of Howland's work in an issue of the literary journal A Public Space dedicated to obscure and forgotten women writers.

A Public Space eventually decided to publish some of Howland's stories through their imprint in 2019, under the title Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.

Awards

• 1978: Guggenheim Fellow
• 1984: MacArthur Fellows Program
• 2022: Inductee in the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

Works

Books

• W-3, Viking Press, 1974; ISBN 978-0-670-74863-1
• Blue in Chicago, Harper & Row, 1978; ISBN 978-0-06-011957-7
• Things to Come and Go: Three Stories, Knopf, 1983; ISBN 978-0-394-53032-1
• Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Brooklyn, NY : A Public Space Books, 2019, ISBN 978-0-9982675-0-0

Short stories

References

1. ^ Genzlinger, Neil (17 December 2017). "Bette Howland, Author and Protégée of Bellow's, Dies at 80". New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
2. Braun, Aurel. "Search « Commentary Magazine". Commentarymagazine.com. Retrieved 2013-11-05.
3. Blades, John (March 18, 1993). "Home Again". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
4. Devers, A.N. (4 December 2015). "Bette Howland: The Tale of a Forgotten Genius - Literary Hub". Lithub.com. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
5. Devers, A.N. (19 December 2017). "An Elegy for Bette Howland, a Writer Who Was Nearly Forgotten". Retrieved 11 April 2019.
6. "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage". Retrieved 11 April 2019.
7. Shtier, Rachel (7 May 2019). "More Die of Heartbreak; Bette Howland steps out of the shadow of Saul Bellow". Tablet. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
8. "Bette Howland - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". Gf.org. Archived from the original on 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2013-11-05.
9. Archived February 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
10. "Bette Howland: Inductee". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. 2022. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
11. Kaplan, Joanna (20 March 1983). "DRY-EYED OBSERVER OF CITY LIVES (book review)". New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2019.

• 1937 births
• 2017 deaths
• Jewish American short story writers
• Jewish women writers
• American women short story writers
• Deaths from dementia in Oklahoma
• Deaths from multiple sclerosis
• People with multiple sclerosis
• MacArthur Fellows
• 21st-century American Jews
• 21st-century American women