Reynolds Price - Career

Career

Price was a Southern writer. All his books are set in the South and more particularly in his native North Carolina. Price once replied when asked why he chose to remain in North Carolina: "It's the place about which I have perfect pitch." Price has cited Southern writer Eudora Welty as one of his early influences. He has also been noted for his sexually frank writing, and the ambiguous nature of his own sexuality; Price did not write publicly about being gay until his third memoir, Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back, published in 2009. He began teaching at Duke shortly after completing his Rhodes Scholarship in the late 1950s. For more than forty years Price taught a class on Milton, and his former students included the writers Josephine Humphreys and Anne Tyler, along with the actress Annabeth Gish.

Price is a favorite author of Bill Clinton, who invited him to dinner at the White House early in his first term. Price wrote the lyrics to two songs by James Taylor: "Copperline" and "New Hymn". Price received numerous literary honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the William Faulkner Foundation Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his memoir Clear Pictures (1989). He was also a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Price's book, Feasting The Heart (2000), is a collection of controversial and personal essays, originally broadcast to great acclaim on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.