Annie Dillard, Pulitzer-winning author, dies at 81

Annie Dillard, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author known for "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," "The Maytrees" and other renowned works, has died. 

She was 81 years old. 

Annie Dillard’s death

What they're saying:

Her literary agent, Rob McQuilkin, told The Associated Press that Dillard died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

RELATED: Celebrity deaths of 2026: The entertainers and artists we lost this year

Annie Dillard’s life and career

The backstory:

Born Meta Ann Doak, Dillard was a Pittsburgh native raised by nonconformists who gave her a wide range to learn and to discover, she wrote in her 1987 memoir "An American Childhood." 

Starting in the mid-1970s, Dillard completed a wide range of books, from the poetry collection "Tickets for a Prayer Wheel" to what she would call the "jolly journalism" of "Encounters with Chinese Writers" to the novel of marriage, "The Maytrees," a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award in 2008. 

Dillard wasn’t even 30 years old yet when "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" established her as a major, new literary voice. Published in 1974 and winner of the Pulitzer for nonfiction, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" drew upon Dillard’s private writings about the surroundings of her home in Roanoke, Virginia. 

She taught for more than 20 years at Wesleyan University before retiring in 2002. In 2014, President Barack Obama presented her with a National Humanities Medal for her "profound reflections on human life and nature."

She was married three times, most recently to the late literary biographer Robert Richardson, whom she met after sending him a fan letter admiring his biography of Thoreau. She had one child, Cody, with second husband Gary Clevidence. Her first husband was creative writing teacher Richard Dillard, whom she divorced in 1975 after 10 years of marriage.

Entertainment