"But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography." JOHN UPDIKE
John Hoyer Updike
John H. Updike was born on March 18, 1932 in Reading, Pennsylvania. His father was a science teacher and his mother was an aspiring writer who encouraged John to write and draw. As the only child and throughout his childhood, he suffered from psoriaisis and stammering. He turned to art and reading as an escape from his medical conditions. John attended Shillington High School and served as president and co-valedictorian of his graduating class. For the first few summers after high school, John worked as a copy boy at the Reading Eagle Newspaper. While working for Reading Eagle Newspaper, he progressively produced numerous short stories for the paper.Thereafter he received tuition scholarship to Harvard University and majored in English.
He spent one year attending Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts in Oxford, England. In 1955, he was hired and worked for the New Yorker writing poetry, stories, criticism, and editorials. His first poetry book, The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures was published in 1958. John married Mary E. Pennington in 1953 and had 4 children with her. John and Mary divorced in 1974 and John was remarried to Martha Ruggles Bernhard in 1977 until his death in 2009.
Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Arts Oxford, England.
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
