February 2, 1945 -
American novelist and teacher
Author of "Dreams of Sleep" (for which she won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award in 1984), "Rich in Love" (which was turned into a film in 1992) and "Nowhere Else on Earth" (for which she won the Southern Book Award in 2001)
Was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature