Wells Tower
USA | 2010, 2011
Wells Tower is the author of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, a collection of short fiction. He is currently a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He was shortlisted in the Premio Gregor von Rezzori 2011.
Tower is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, the 2002 Plimpton (Discovery) Prize from The Paris Review, and a Henfield Foundation Award. Tower’s first short story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned was published in 2009. Michiko Kakutani picked it as one of her ten best books of 2009. It was also a finalist for The Story Prize. In June, 2010, Tower was named as one of The New Yorker’s “20 under 40″ luminary fiction writers. On June 10, 2010, he was presented with the Tenth Annual New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a $10,000 prize for an American writer under 40. His work was selected for the Best American Short Stories 2010
He is currently a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
Report 2010
I arrived at Santa Maddalena in April, 2009 on a spring day of gemlike clarity. A downpour started the following morning and did not quit until my departure in late May. No matter. Santa Maddalena was, for me, a spell of much needed respite after a long year of travel, a return to the quiet, cloistered business of writing. The days in the tower were a healthy balance of languor and industry: writing until midafternoon, when we joined Beatrice for an excellent lunch served in tranquilizing quantity. An afternoon doze, then hours of reading and peering at the sly lizards on my windowsill, ducking the rain. Twelve books books read, three short stories written, and two score pages of novel draft was the final count, a fine haul. I owe Beatrice and Santa Maddalena a great debt of gratitude. My deepest thanks.