Bette Howland
Bette Howland 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;
- Blue in Chicago, Harper & Row, 1978;
- Things to Come and Go: Three Stories, Knopf, 1983;
- Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Brooklyn, NY : A Public Space Books, 2019, ISBN 978-0-9982675-0-0