Nancy Huddleston Packer

Packer was born in 1925 in Washington, D.C., where her father, George Huddleston, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives,[2] representing Alabama’s 9th congressional district. She was one of five children, and as a child lived in both Washington and Birmingham, Alabama.[2] She graduated from Birmingham–Southern College in 1945,[3][4] and gained a master's degree in theology from the University of Chicago in 1947.[2][4][5] She then studied creative writing with Hudson Strode at the University of Alabama.[6]

Packer's first published work appeared in Harper's in 1953,[2][6][7] and other work appeared in Dude.[2] In 1957, she married Herbert L. Packer, and moved to California with him when he was appointed to Stanford University as a professor of law.[2][4] She was awarded a fellowship at Stanford University's creative writing center for 1959-60,[4] and studied writing with Wallace Stegner,[8] before joining the faculty in 1961 as a professor of English and creative writing.[2] Her short stories appeared in the O. Henry Award Prize Stories in 1969[9][10] and 1981.[11][12][13] From 1989-1993 she directed the Stanford University program in creative writing.[14][15][16] Among her students were Michael Cunningham[17] and Ethan Canin.[18] She served as fiction jury chair for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize,[19] and continued to teach creative writing through Stanford Continuing Studies.[17]

She is the mother of Ann Packer (author) and George Packer, both writers.[17] Her husband died in 1972.[2][17]

• 1976 The Short Story: An Introduction (with Wilfred Stone and Robert Hoopes)
• 1976 Small Moments[20][21][22]
• 1986 Writing Worth Reading: A Practical Guide (with John Timpane)[23]
• 1988 In My Father's House: Tales of an Unconformable Man[17]
• 1989 The Women Who Walk[24][25][26][27][28][29]
• 1997 Jealous-Hearted Me[30]
• 2012 Old Ladies[2]