Hallie Southgate Burnett

Hallie Southgate Burnett (December 3, 1908 – September 4, 1991) was an American novelist, college professor, and co-editor of Story. Known professionally as Hallie Burnett, joined Story in 1942 as an editor. During her tenure at Story, she helped publish early work from J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and William Saroyan, among others.

Burnett and her husband Whitney Ewing Burnett also operated The Story Press, a publishing house.

Early life Burnett had little formal schooling as a child in her native St. Louis. Of This Heart, This Hunter, reviewer Charlotte Capers wrote in The New York Times, "The author is able to create an atmosphere of suspense at the beginning of the story, which fizzles out toward the end."

Her composition and criticism work received higher praise, with The New York Times including her book On Writing the Short Story in its "New & Noteworthy" section.

Publications

Novels

A Woman in Possession (1951) This Heart, This Hunter (1953) The Brain Pickers (1957) The Watch on the Wall (1965)

Anthology

Story Jubilee: Thirty-Three Years of Story (1965) – Editor (with Whit Burnett)

Creative Writing Composition

Fiction Writer's Handbook (1975) – Writer (with Whit Burnett) On Writing the Short Story (1983) – Writer

Personal life In the 1930s Burnett was married to Robert Abbott, a college professor, but the marriage ended in divorce.

In 1977, Burnett married William Zeisel. Zeisel died in 1980.

Burnett died at the Steward Health Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. She had two children, a son and a daughter.