Wesleyans of a certain age are remembering a revered teacher:
With the publication of “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” in 1974, Ms. Dillard, just 28, was recognized as a major new voice in American letters. It was only the beginning of her career: In the years to come, she would publish essays, meditations on religion, poems, a theory of literature, two novels, journalism, a best-selling autobiography and another best seller, “The Writing Life,” about what it takes to put words into a world that has more than enough of them.
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Though she had once said that she might remain in the Northwest, she and [second husband, Gary] Clevidence moved east in 1979, and from then until 2001 she taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.
Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81 - The New York Times