Bette Howland

Bette Howland (January 28, 1937 – December 13, 2017) was an American writer and literary critic. She wrote for Commentary Magazine.

Biography Born Bette Lee Sotonoff to Sam Sotonoff, a machinist, and Jessie Berger, a homemaker, she focused much of her work on her native Chicago, though she left the city in 1975.

In 1956, she married Howard Howland, a biologist. The couple had two sons but later separated and divorced, though she kept his surname.

Howland died on December 13, 2017, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, aged 80, while living near one of her sons, the philosopher Jacob Howland.

A Public Space eventually decided to publish some of Howland's stories through their imprint in 2019, under the title Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.

Awards 1978: Guggenheim Fellow 1984: MacArthur Fellows Program 2022: Inductee in the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

Works Books W-3, Viking Press, 1974; Blue in Chicago, Harper & Row, 1978; Things to Come and Go: Three Stories, Knopf, 1983; Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Brooklyn, NY : A Public Space Books, 2019, ISBN 978-0-9982675-0-0

Short stories + Title Publication Collected in "Julia" Quarterly Review of Literature 9.4 (1958) - "Sam Katz" Epoch 9.2 (Fall 1958) - "Aronesti" The Noble Savage 5 (1962) Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage "Public Facilities" Commentary (February 1972) Blue in Chicago "Blue in Chicago" Commentary (August 1972) "To the Country" Commentary (November 1973) "Golden Age" Commentary (April 1975) "Twenty-Sixth and California" Blue in Chicago (1978) "How We Got the Old Woman to Go" "The Life You Gave Me" Commentary (August 1982) Things to Come and Go "Birds of a Feather" Things to Come and Go (1983) "The Old Wheeze" "Power Failure" The American Voice 1 (1985) Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" TriQuarterly 104 (Winter 1999) "Mengele's Leg" Confrontation 101 (Spring/Summer 2008) - "A Visit" A Public Space 23 (2015) Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage "German Lessons" Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (2019)