Life and career
He is best known for his novel Somewhere in France (1999), aside from which he has written four other novels and two short-story collections. Sixteen of his stories were published in The New Yorker ; others were published in The American Scholar and in other publications. His short story "The Voyage Out" was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories . His work was awarded the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers Award and the O. Henry Award.
The New Yorker is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It is published by Condé Nast. Started as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is now published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans.
"The American Scholar" was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College at the First Parish in Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was invited to speak in recognition of his groundbreaking work Nature, published a year earlier, in which he established a new way for America's fledgling society to regard the world. Sixty years after declaring independence, American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe, and Emerson, for possibly the first time in the country's history, provided a visionary philosophical framework for escaping "from under its iron lids" and building a new, distinctly American cultural identity.
The Best American Short Stories
yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.
Gardiner's stories often take place in his native Virginia, but also in various places in Europe, most prominently in France. [1] His work has received vast critical acclaim:
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States located between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" due to its status as the first English colonial possession established in mainland North America and "Mother of Presidents" because eight U.S. presidents were born there, more than any other state. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's estimated population as of 2018 is over 8.5 million.
Elegantly written, this funny, poignant gem of a book..
— Publishers Weekly , on In the Heart of the Whole World
This is an abundant work that you'll want to read more than once
— Library Journal , on In the Heart of the Whole World
There is something tantalizingly sinister about Gardiner's short stories: a hint of intrigue and a soupcon of the illicit connect them all... Haunting fare from a master storyteller, richly evocative and thought provoking
— Carol Haggas, on The Magellan House
Gardiner is a wonderfully distinctive writer whose often funny stories are animated by a healing, intelligent compassion for characters groping for redemption in a heartless world
— Publishers Weekly, on The Incubator Ballroom [2]
Gardiner lives in Middleburg, Virginia, with his artist wife Joan. They have one daughter, Nicola.
Middleburg is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population was 673 at the 2010 census.
