Heather Clark (writer) explained

Heather Clark
Nationality:	American
Education:	Harvard University (BA) University of Oxford (PhD)
Notable Works:	Red Comet (2020)

Heather Clark is an American writer, literary critic and academic. Her biography of poet Sylvia Plath, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (2011) and The Ulster Renaissance: Poetry in Belfast 1962–1972 (2006).

Biography

Clark earned a BA from Harvard University and a PhD in English from University of Oxford.^[1]

Clark's first book, The Ulster Renaissance: Poetry in Belfast 1962–1972 was published by Oxford University Press in 2006. It is an exploration of the ten-year period of energetic poetic production in Belfast, Northern Ireland, driven by young poets such as Paul Muldoon, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, and James Simmons. The book won the Donald J. Murphy Prize for Best First Book and the Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Literature from the American Conference for Irish Studies.

Her second book, The Grief of Influence, is an analytical study of the creative work, tumultuous marriage, and artistic rivalry of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, published by Oxford University Press in 2011. It was chosen as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2011.^[2]

In 2020, Alfred A. Knopf published Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. At over 1,000 pages, the biography includes previously unpublished manuscripts, letters, court, police, and psychiatric records, and new interviews. In a review in The New York Times, Daphne Merkin writes,

"This vast new biography sets out to recover Plath from her melodramatic legacy. Her life story—from her institutionalizations to her tempestuous marriage to Ted Hughes—has often been reduced to that of a depressive, literary femme fatale, which Clark believes ignores the poet's true genius".^[3]

In a review for the Los Angeles Times, Jessica Ferri called the book "a joyful affirmation for Plath fanatics and a legitimization of her legacy".^[4]

Clark's writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Review, TIME, The Times Literary Supplement, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. She lives in New York and Yorkshire, England and is Professor Emerita at University of Huddersfield.^[1]

Awards and grants

• Emory University's Manuscript, Archive, and Rare Book Library Fellowship
• Visiting U.S. Fellowship at the Eccles Centre for American Studies, British Library
• Leon Levy Biography Fellowship at the City University of New York (2016)^[5]
• Guggenheim Foundation fellowship (2022)^[6]
• National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship (2017)^[7]
• Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography (2020)^[8]
• Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award, (2020)^[9]
• Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Biography (2021)^[10]
• Winner, Slightly Foxed Prize for Best First Biography (2020)^[11]
• Best Books, The New York Times Book Review (2021)^[12]
• Winner, Truman Capote Prize for Literary Criticism (2022)^[13]
• 2024–2025 Cullman Center Fellow^[14]

Publications

• The Ulster Renaissance: Poetry in Belfast 1962–1972 (2006)
• The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (2011)
• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (2020)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Bio . 2023-12-13 . Heather Clark . en-US.
2. Web site: Choice Outstanding Academic Title Awards and Honors LibraryThing . 2023-12-13 . LibraryThing.com . en.
3. News: Merkin . Daphne . 2020-10-27 . Shifting the Focus From Sylvia Plath's Tragic Death to Her Brilliant Life . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-12-13 . 0362-4331.
4. Web site: Ferri . Jessica . 2020-10-29 . Review: Think you know Sylvia Plath? Read this definitive new biography . 2023-12-13 . Los Angeles Times . en-US.
5. Web site: Ziolkowski . Thad . Current & Former Fellows . 2023-12-13 . Leon Levy Center for Biography . en-US.
6. Web site: Heather Clark . 2023-12-13 . John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation... . en.
7. Web site: NEH grant details: The Light of the Mind: A Biography of American Poet and Novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) . 2023-12-13 . apps.neh.gov.
8. Web site: 2021-03-02 . Isabel Wilkerson, Jacob Soboroff, Akwaeke Emezi among L.A. Times Book Prize finalists . 2023-12-13 . Los Angeles Times . en-US.
9. Web site: Schaub . Michael . 2021-01-25 . Announcing the Finalists for the 2020 NBCC Awards . 2023-12-13 . National Book Critics Circle . en-US.
10. https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/heather-clark
11. Web site: Heather Clark wins the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2020 for Red Comet . 9 March 2021 .
12. News: The 10 Best Books of 2021 . December 13, 2023 . The New York Times . November 30, 2021.
13. Web site: Kay Ryan and Heather Clark Receive the 2021 and 2022 Truman Capote Awards Iowa Writers' Workshop College of Liberal Arts & Sciences The University of Iowa . 2023-12-13 . writersworkshop.uiowa.edu.
14. Web site: Allen . Brittany . Please welcome the 2024-25 class of Cullman fellows. . Literary Hub . 23 April 2024 . 24 April 2024.