Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, remembered

The useful part

Remembering Annie Dillard, nature writer With her 1974 book, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," Annie Dillard became the youngest woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. BOB CHILD/AP/AP hide caption toggle caption BOB CHILD/AP/AP Annie Dillard, who died this week at the age of 81, was often called a nature writer. She wrote about weasels, squirrels, muskrats and snails, cedar trees and sycamores, mourning doves, moths, and, notably, a giant water bug that bites a small frog and…well, no need to go into that now.

How it works

• Annie Dillard became the youngest woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, at the age of 28, for her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
• She began the book remembering her old tomcat, who would jump through the bedroom window after prowling outside her home in rural Virginia.
• "The sign on my body could have been an emblem or a stain, the keys to the kingdom or the mark of Cain.
• "…We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence...

What to take from it

"You can't take it with you." NPR does not offer or accept money for coverage or interviews. 'Seem like we're just set down here,' a woman said to me recently, 'and don't nobody know why.'" There was a kind of biblical drama and cadence to Annie Dillard's blunt and beautiful words. She looked for meaning with her words, and her writing opened understanding to others.

Related coverage

• Nytimes: Her Thoreau-like account of journeys in the woods, published when she was 28, was the first of many ruminations on life and nature, good and evil.
• Mynbc5: Annie Dillard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author known for her poetic explorations of nature and spirituality, has died at 81
• Baptistnews: I keep mentioning the news to people as though it's about someone they knew.
• Vulture: Across genres, she was one of the most acclaimed prose writers of the past century.