{{Short description|American writer|bot=PearBOT 5}} {{About|the writer|the chemist and UCLA Provost|Emily A. Carter}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Emily Carter | image = Emily carter at home (cropped).jpg | caption = Carter in 2010 | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1960|12|15}} | birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = | other_names = | education = | alma_mater = New York University | occupation = Writer | years_active = | television = | spouse = Johnnie Sage Ammentorp | children = | parents = Anne Roiphe<br>Jack Richardson | family = Katie Roiphe (sister)<br>Rebecca Roiphe (sister) }}
'''Emily Carter''' (born 15 December 1960)<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Dinitia |date=2000-12-13 |title=Plummeting, Then Soaring Up To Put Her Agony on Paper (Published 2000) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/books/plummeting-then-soaring-up-to-put-her-agony-on-paper.html |access-date=2025-09-26 |work=New York Times}}</ref> is an American writer of short stories and essays. Her work, often semi-autobiographical, explores themes of addiction, alienation, illness, and recovery.
==Biography==
=== Early life and education === Carter is the daughter of feminist writer Anne Roiphe and playwright Jack Richardson.<ref name="Douglas">{{cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|title=Jack Richardson, New York Playwright, Is Dead at 78|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/theater/jack-richardson-new-york-playwright-dies-at-78.html?partner=rss&emc=rss|accessdate=2012-07-06|newspaper=The New York Times|date=2012-07-04}}</ref><ref name=JWA>{{Cite web|first=Seth |last=Korelitz |title=Anne Roiphe b. 1935|publisher=Jewish Women's Archive|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/roiphe-anne|accessdate=2019-03-18}}</ref> She was later adopted by her stepfather, psychoanalyst Herman Roiphe.<ref name=":0" /> She uses her middle name as her surname to distinguish herself from her mother’s literary reputation.<ref name=":0" /> Her half-sisters are writer Katie Roiphe and lawyer Rebecca Roiphe.<ref name=JWA />
Raised on Park Avenue in New York City,<ref name=POZ /> in what she later described as a “big, chaotic, wonderful house.”<ref name=":0" /> The family spent summers on Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket.<ref name="POZ">{{cite magazine |last=Peck |first=Claude |date=August 1998 |title=Emily Carter |url=http://www.poz.com/articles/230_1644.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324192859/http://www.poz.com/articles/230_1644.shtml |archive-date=2012-03-24 |accessdate=2025-09-26 |magazine=POZ}}</ref> Despite this privileged background, she struggled from an early age with feelings of loneliness and alienation. She was expelled from kindergarten for disruptive behavior and attended a series of private schools before graduating from the Robert Louis Stevenson School for Gifted Underachievers in New York City.<ref name=POZ />
Carter exhibited an early gift for language, winning a school poetry prize even while bringing home poor grades.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=POZ /> By the age of four she had begun seeing a psychologist, and throughout her childhood she experienced behavioral difficulties and recurring psychological issues.<ref name=":0" />
She enrolled at New York University in 1978, but left after one semester.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=POZ /> In the late 1970s and 1980s she became active in the East Village performance scene, reading prose poems at open-mic events and participating in the Neither/Nor gallery and performance space.<ref name=POZ />
===Addiction and health=== As a teenager and young adult, Carter began drinking heavily and using drugs. She developed addictions to cocaine and heroin, at times supporting her habit through topless dancing and sex work. In the late 1980s her family intervened, arranging for her treatment at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota.<ref name=":0" />
During a relapse, Carter learned that she was HIV-positive, likely contracted through intravenous drug use or sexual contact. She eventually achieved sobriety and settled in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she lived in a sober boarding house and worked a series of jobs while continuing her recovery.<ref name=":0" />
===Writing career=== Carter began publishing stories in the early 1990s, contributing to The Jailfish Review and later selling her work to The New Yorker. Her story ''Parachute Silk'' (1992) depicted the lives of addicts and was one of her first works to attract national attention. In 1998 her short story ''Glory Goes and Gets Some'', first published in Open City, was selected for Best American Short Stories.<ref name=":0" /> She also placed work in Story, where editor Lois Rosenthal praised her fiction as inventive and emotionally affecting.<ref name=POZ />
Her collection ''Glory Goes and Gets Some'', published in 2000, received attention for its raw depiction of drug use, sexuality, and illness, presented through the lens of a semi-autobiographical protagonist, Glory. Critics noted her refusal to portray herself as a passive victim, instead emphasizing self-destructive agency and the stigmatization of people with HIV/AIDS.<ref name=":0" /> ===Later life and work===
Carter has worked as a community educator with the Minnesota AIDS Project, focusing on counseling and advocacy. She has continued to write fiction.<ref name=":0" />
She was previously married to a teacher and cab driver; the marriage ended in divorce.<ref name=":0" /> She is married to punk rock musician Johnnie Sage Ammentorp,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Simonson |first=Robert |date=2012-07-05 |title=Jack Richardson, Playwriting Force of 1960s Off-Broadway, Dies at 77 |url=https://playbill.com/article/jack-richardson-playwriting-force-of-1960s-off-broadway-dies-at-77-com-195380 |access-date=2025-09-26 |work=Playbill}}</ref> a fellow recovering addict.<ref name=":0" />
==Awards== * 1996 McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship for Writers Grant * 1998 The Loft Literary Center Grant * 2001 Whiting Award for Fiction
==Works==
===Books=== * {{cite book| title=Glory Goes and Gets Some| url=https://archive.org/details/glorygoesgetssom00cart| url-access=registration| quote=Emily Carter.| publisher=Coffee House Press| year= 2000| isbn=978-1-56689-101-1 }} **[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1992/07/27/parachute-silk "Parachute Silk"], Originally published in ''The New Yorker'', July 27, 1992 **[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/02/14/bad-boy-walking "Bad Boy Walking"], Originally published in ''The New Yorker'', February 14, 1994 **[http://barcelonareview.com/37/e_ec.htm "WLUV"], Reprinted in ''The Barcelona Review'', July–August 2003
===Anthologies=== * {{cite book| title=The Best American Short Stories| chapter=Glory Goes and Gets Some|editor=Garrison Keillor |editor2=Katrina Kenison| publisher=Houghton Mifflin| year=1998| isbn=978-0-395-87514-8| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/bestamericanshor00keil_0}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.collectedstories.com/files/storyteller/ecarter.html "A word with the writer: Emily Carter"] collectedstories.com (2000) *Freeman, John (August 30, 2000) [https://web.archive.org/web/20121025044757/http://www.citypages.com/2000-08-30/news/an-encyclopedia-of-little-abominations/1/ "An Encyclopedia of Little Abominations"] ''City Pages'' *[http://www.whiting.org/awards/winners/emily-carter#/ Emily Carter] profile at ''The Whiting Foundation''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Emily}} Category:American women writers Category:1960 births Category:Writers from New York City Category:Living people Category:New York University alumni Category:American people of Jewish descent Category:21st-century American women