The work of Raymond Carver—born on May 25, 1938, in Clatskanie, Oregon, and raised primarily in Yakima, Washington—is often associated with the term “minimalism,” though Carver himself disputed this designation. In multiple short story and poetry collections, Carver explored the everyday indignities of working-class life in America, touching on poverty, shattered love affairs, the pains of alcoholism, and more. His first short story collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, was published in 1976, but his early career was marred by his battle with alcoholism, an addiction he was finally able to overcome in 1977. Carver was well known for his professional relationship with the editor Gordon Lish, who sometimes radically restructured Carver’s work, going so far as to cut up to 70 percent of a single story. Before his early death at the age of fifty, Carver went on to publish What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981), Cathedral (1984), and Where I’m Calling From (1988), making him one of the most influential practitioners of the American short story in the latter half of the twentieth century. Carver died of lung cancer in 1988.