Richard Yates, In Memoriam

Posted to the Richard Yates archive. This essay appeared in The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (Hyperion, 1999).

It was 1967, an hour before class, and Dick Yates was sitting in an Iowa City bar called the Airliner, in a total, cold-sweat panic. One of his best students –someone with not only a big reputation but a book contract–had a chapter up for discussion; most of us liked it but Dick thought it was lousy and had just realized there was no graceful way out. He would have to say so in class. Read more