Passages

Published 10:25 pm Thursday, January 15, 2009

Calisher won literary prize four times

NEW YORK — Hortense Calisher, a prize-winning writer and former president of PEN known for her dense, un-skimmable prose in such works of fiction as “False Entry” and “In Greenwich There Are Many Gravelled Walks,” has died. She was 97.

Calisher, the author of more than 20 books, was a three-time nominee for the National Book Award and a four-time winner of the O. Henry Prize for the short story. Several works, notably “In Greenwich …,” have been anthologized.

Calisher is survived by her husband, author Curtis Harnack, to whom she was married for 50 years, and a son from a previous marriage, Peter Heffelfinger of Anacortes.

Jean Keene was Homer’s ‘Eagle Lady’

JUNEAU, Alaska — Jean Keene, a woman known as the “Eagle Lady” who gained national acclaim for feeding the hundreds of eagles at her home in the winter, has died. She was 85.

Her son, Lonnie, said she died Tuesday in Homer of natural causes. Lonnie Keene said his mother suffered from breast cancer, heart troubles and lung problems.

Keene was a fixture in Homer, an Alaska fishing community 130 miles southeast of Anchorage, where she fed fish discards from a local seafood plant to the eagles.

The eagles’ wintertime arrival and the woman feeding them attracted photographers to Homer from around the country.

Associated Press