Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason was raised on her familys dairy farm in western Kentucky. She became interested in writing as a child, when she wrote imitations of the mystery series novels she read. She was inspired by Louisa May Alcotts "Little Women," but it wasnt until college that she discovered other writers, especially the fiction of Hemingway, Salinger, and Fitzgerald.
 
She earned her B.A. in English at the University of Kentucky in 1962, her M.A. at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1966, and her Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut in 1972. Although her dissertation on Vladimir Nabokov was published (Ardis, 1974), teaching jobs were scarce in the seventies. Thus, she was able to focus on writing fiction while teaching journalism part-time.