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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Author Biography

Meta Ann Doak was born into an upper-middle-class family on April 30, 1945, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She and her two younger sisters were raised under the influences of their free-thinking parents, their wealthy paternal grandparents who lived nearby, and an African-American domestic servant. "Annie" was encouraged from the beginning to think and act independently, to tell stories, and to read books. She took piano and dance lessons, socialized at the country club, and attended the Ellis School, a private school for girls where she studied Latin, French, and German. But she had a keen interest in the natural world even as a girl, and assembled collections of rocks, bugs, and other elements of nature, as well as a collection of favorite poems. Dillard has recounted her early years in an autobiography, An American Childhood (1987).

Dillard's high school years were turbulent. Like many teenagers, she took up smoking and...
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