Pamela Ryder
Photo courtesy of Pamela Ryder
Bio
Pamela Ryder is the author of the short story collection, A Tendency to Be Gone (Dzanc Press) and two novels-in-stories: Correction of Drift, about the Lindbergh baby kidnap case, and Paradise Field, depicting the last years of a dying father and his relationship with his adult daughter (both published by Fiction Collective 2). Her work has been published in many literary journals, among them Bellevue Literary Review, Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Unsaid, Propagule, Black Warrior Review, Tyrant, Jewish Fiction.net, and Conjunctions. Her most recent novel, The Lists of Billy the Kid, portrays that young desperado’s odyssey from the tenements of New York City to his death in the high desert of New Mexico.
It was just this spring that I was informed that I had sustained an irreversible—and possibly progressive—vision loss—stable, at least for now. Such things become more likely with old age. My reaction was: better keep on writing while you still can. And then came the phone call. Thank you, National Endowment for the Arts, for the recognition of my work, and for the possibilities of the future. The act of writing remains a mystery to me—especially in its power to reveal my guilt, regret, losses, and feeble attempts at absolution—and yet I am grateful for its ability to transform me, to illuminate the ordinary, and most importantly, to serve as a hedge against the disintegration of the self and the inevitable and ultimate quietude.