Personal Life
In 1975, she and Richard Dillard divorced amicably, and she moved from Roanoke to Lummi Island near Bellingham, Washington. She taught at Western Washington University part-time as a writer-in-residence. She later married Gary Clevidence, an anthropology professor at WWU's Fairhaven College, and they have a daughter, Cody Rose. For over two decades, she has been married to the historical biographer Robert D. Richardson, whom she met after sending him a fan letter about his book Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind.
Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut. After college Dillard says she became "spiritually promiscuous". Her first prose book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, makes references not only to Christ and the Bible, but also to Judaism, Buddhism, Sufism, and Inuit spirituality. Dillard converted to Roman Catholicism, and in 1994 won the Campion Award, given to a Catholic writer every year by the editors of America. However, her personal website lists her religion as "none."
Her website sells her paintings to benefit a charity called Partners in Health. Dr. Paul Farmer founded the charity to rid the world of infectious disease.
Read more about this topic: Annie Dillard
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Life is not an easy matter.... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“That poor little thing was a good woman, Judge. But she just sort of let life get the upper hand. She was born here and she wanted to be buried here. I promised her on her deathbed she’d have a funeral in a church with flowers. And the sun streamin’ through a pretty window on her coffin. And a hearse with plumes and some hacks. And a preacher to read the Bible. And folks there in church to pray for her soul.”
—Laurence Stallings (1804–1968)