Ohioana Career Award: 2005
Jack Matthews of Athens OH
 Jack Matthews
has devoted much of his life to the craft of writing and to the love of books.
He was born and raised in Columbus.
After completing a bachelor’s degree in English literature and classical Greek at
Ohio State University, he stayed on to pursue a master’s degree
in English literature.
Upon completing his education, he undertook a career as a university professor,
first at Urbana University and then at Ohio University,
where he has taught for the past 40 years. He is the author of more than
20 novels and collections of poetry and short stories.
One critic noted of Matthews’ fiction, “Like Sinclair Lewis,
Matthews captures the essence of Middle America.
He does so, however, without the didacticism of Lewis and with more of the comic and a
surer control of the dramatic.”
His work has earned a number of honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ohio Arts Council
Major Artist’s Fellowship, three Ohioana Book Awards and a Distinguished Professorship at Ohio University.
In addition to his publications listed below, Matthews' short stories, essays, poems, and
reviews have appeared in The Yale Review, The Malahat Review, The Sewanee Review,
the New York Times, The Nation, The New Republic, The National Review,
Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Mademoiselle, The Southern Review, Soundings,
and The London Review of Books.
Selected Publications
Schopenhauer's Will, H&H Publishers, Prague, 2002
Reading Matter (essays), Oak Knoll Press, 2000
Booking Pleasures, Ohio University Press, 1995
Storyhood as We Know It and Other Stories, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993
An Interview with the Sphinx (one-act play), The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1991
Memoirs of a Bookman (essays), Ohio University Press, 1989
Crazy Women (story collection), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985
Sassafras (novel), Houghton Mifflin, 1983
Tales of the Ohio Land (story collection), Ohio Historical Society, 1980
Collecting Rare Books for Pleasure and Profit, Putnam's [Reissue by Ohio University Press], 1977
Private Landscapes (poems) [chapbook], Croissant, Pamphlet No. 1, 1975
The Charisma Campaigns (novel), Harcourt, Brace, 1972
Hanger Stout, Awake! (novel), Harcourt, Brace, 1967
An Almanac for Twilight (poems), University of North Carolina Press, 1966
Bitter Knowledge (story collection), Scribners, 1964
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