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Clare Beams
Born1981 or 1982 (age 41–42)
Alma materColumbia University (MFA)
Occupations
  • Novelist
  • short story writer
Children2
WebsiteOfficial website

Clare Beams (born 1981 or 1982)[1] is an American short story writer and novelist. She has published a collection of short stories and two novels, and her works are often about women's experiences.

Life and career

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Beams grew up in Connecticut.[1] She graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in 2006.[2][3] She taught high school English for nine years in Massachusetts, and later moved to Pittsburgh where she taught fiction at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.[2][4] In 2014 she received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for prose.[2] As of 2024 she teaches in the Randolph College MFA program.[5] She and her husband have two daughters.[1][6]

Beams' debut book, the short story collection We Show What We Have Learned, was published in 2016, and was listed by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best debut fiction books of that year.[7] The review described it as a "richly imagined and impeccably crafted debut".[8] Joyce Carol Oates described her as a "female/feminist voice for the 21st century".[9] Reviews in The New York Times, the Star Tribune, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Paste also praised the collection.[4][10][11][12] The collection features themes of transformation and magical realism, and four of the nine stories are set in schools.[12][4] It was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Shirley Jackson Award for best collection.[13][14][15]

She was writer in residence at Bard College in 2020, having received the Bard Fiction Prize for We Show What We Have Learned.[13][16] In the same year she published her first novel, The Illness Lesson. Set in 19th century Massachusetts, the novel is about an illness affecting a school of young women.[3][17] It was described by The Washington Post as "Louisa May Alcott meets Shirley Jackson, with a splash of Margaret Atwood",[13] and by The New York Times as "astoundingly original".[18] It was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.[19]

Beams' second novel The Garden was published in 2024, and she has said it was inspired by the history of diethylstilbestrol, a drug prescribed to pregnant women in the mistaken belief that it would prevent miscarriage but that instead caused serious adverse side effects.[20] The New York Times observed that "the genius of the novel is the way Beams continually intertwines fictional elements with true-to-life obstetric practices".[20] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted that "like her previous work, [Beam] writes with her eyes wide open, completely unafraid to embrace the macabre".[21] She is the 2023-24 Walton Visiting Writer in Fiction at the University of Arkansas.[5]

Works

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  • We Show What We Have Learned (short story collection, Lookout Books, 2016)[9]
  • The Illness Lesson (novel, Doubleday, 2020)[13]
  • The Garden (novel, Doubleday, 2024)[1][22]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Beams, Clare (April 7, 2024). "Sandy Hook and its Ghosts: Author Clare Beams Reflects on Growing Up in Newtown, Conn". People. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c "Clare Beams". National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Shapiro, Rebecca. "Review: "The Illness Lesson"". Columbia Magazine. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c Wright, Wendeline O. (December 4, 2016). "'We Show What We Have Learned': Pittsburgh author Clare Beams' unsettling literary triumph". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on December 6, 2016.
  5. ^ a b "Clare Beams, 2023-24 Walton Visiting Writer in Fiction, to Read in Fayetteville". University of Arkansas. February 16, 2024. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  6. ^ "about". Clare Beams. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  7. ^ "Best Debut Fiction of 2016". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  8. ^ "We Show What We Have Learned". Kirkus Reviews. July 27, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  9. ^ a b Moore, Andrew (October 19, 2024). "A Conversation with Clare Beams". Pittsburgh City Paper. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  10. ^ Williams, John (November 30, 2016). "Books by Clare Beams, Hans Herbert Grimm, April Ayers Lawson and Kelly Luce". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  11. ^ Forbes, Malcolm (November 4, 2024). "Review: 'We Show What We Have Learned and Other Stories,' by Clare Beams". Star Tribune. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  12. ^ a b An, Christine (October 28, 2016). "Clare Beams Proves She's a Captivating Literary Voice with We Show What We Have Learned". Paste Magazine. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  13. ^ a b c d Winik, Marion (March 3, 2020). "'The Illness Lesson' alludes to 'Little Women' but will remind you of darker works". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  14. ^ "The New York Public Library's 2017 Young Lions Fiction Award". Town & Country. June 8, 2017. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  15. ^ "2016 Shirley Jackson Awards Winners". The Shirley Jackson Awards. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  16. ^ "Bard Fiction Prize Winner Clare Beams to Give Reading on February 24". Bard College. February 13, 2020. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  17. ^ Meyer, Lily (March 9, 2020). "The Claustrophobic Menace of Boarding-School Fiction". The Atlantic. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  18. ^ Jones, Siobhan (February 14, 2020). "An Adulterer, a Gang Member, a Dystopian Teacher: 3 Novels of American Womanhood". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  19. ^ "2020 First Novel Prize". The Center for Fiction. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
  20. ^ a b Oshetsky, Claire (April 9, 2024). "Is This Maternity Hospital Haunted, or Is It All a Pregnant Metaphor?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  21. ^ Gualtieri, Christy. "Review: Clare Beams on the desire and darkness of motherhood". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on April 24, 2024. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  22. ^ Behe, Rege. "Clare Beams births a new kind of pregnancy horror with The Garden". Pittsburgh City Paper. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
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