Carol Sklenicka

Carol Sklenicka (December 11, 1948) is an American biographer and literary scholar known for her authoritative, full-scale biographies of two important figures in late twentieth-century American literature: acclaimed short story masters Raymond Carver and Alice Adams.

Sklenicka's ''Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life'' (2009) and her ''Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer'' (2019) were published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Both Carver and Adams were known for intimate, strikingly lean narrative styles based closely on life experiences, and both are credited with modeling a new commitment to realism in American fiction. Both biographies, extensively researched, run to nearly 600 pages and both have been characterized as definitive. Sklenicka's biographies are the first and (as of 2023) the only biographies of Carver and Adams.

Sklenicka's biography of Carver was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2009 by ''The New York Times Book Review'' and a Notable Book by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', ''The Washington Post'', and the ''Seattle Times''. Her biography of Adams was a ''New York Times Book Review'' Editors’ Choice and named a ''Christian Science Monitor'' Book of the Month. Provided by Wikipedia