Tess Gallagher (b. 1943) is a poet, essayist, novelist, and playwright. Born in Port Angeles, Washington, she attended the University of Washington, where she studied creative writing with Theodore Roethke and later Nelson Bentley. Her honors include a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards, the Maxine Cushing Gray Foundation Award, and the Elliston Award for "best book of poetry published by a small press" for the collection Instructions to the Double (1976).

In 1984, she published the collection, Willingly, which consists of poems written to and about her third husband, author Raymond Carver, who died in 1988. Carver encouraged her to write short stories, some of which were collected in The Lover of Horses (1987).

Gallagher has taught at many colleges.

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NPR Topics: Authors

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