Portrait of Jayne Anne Phillips

Birthday profile

Jayne Anne Phillips

Jayne Anne Phillips American novelist and short story writer

Born
July 19, 1952
Age in 2026
74
Zodiac sign
Cancer
Birth year
1952

About Jayne Anne Phillips

Jayne Anne Phillips is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. She was a professor of English at Rutgers-Newark from 2005 to 2020 and helped establish the MFA program at Rutgers University-Newark. In 1976, Truck Press published her first short story collection Sweethearts, for which Phillips earned a Pushcart Prize and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines Fels Award. In 1984, Phillips published her first novel, Machine Dreams, "a remarkable novelistic debut and an enduring literary achievement," according to the New York Times. Her next collection, Black Tickets, published by Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence in 1979 when she was 26, was her first book of stories and brought her national attention as a talented and important writer. In 2024, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel Night Watch.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Jayne Anne Phillips timeline

  1. In 1976, Truck Press published her first short story collection Sweethearts, for which Phillips earned a Pushcart Prize and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines Fels Award.
  2. Her next collection, Black Tickets, published by Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence in 1979 when she was 26, was her first book of stories and brought her national attention as a talented and important writer.
  3. In 1984, Phillips published her first novel, Machine Dreams, "a remarkable novelistic debut and an enduring literary achievement," according to the New York Times.
  4. In 2024, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel Night Watch.

The world when Jayne Anne Phillips was born

Jayne Anne Phillips was born in 1952. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1952

  • #1 song"You Belong to Me" – Jo Stafford
  • Top movieThe Greatest Show on Earth
  • Top TV showI Love Lucy
  • Best-selling bookThe Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentRocky Marciano becomes heavyweight champion
  • Top headlineDwight Eisenhower elected president
  • Technology milestoneFirst hydrogen bomb tested
  • Defining fadMr. Potato Head
  • Notable inventionMr. Potato Head (first toy advertised on TV)
  • World population2.63 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHarry S. Truman
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • Also wonMinneapolis Lakers (NBA)
  • U.S. population156.4M

1952 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jayne Anne Phillips's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19522026
Gas$0.27$3.45/gal
Average home$9,100$435,000
Average income$5,700$67,500
Minimum wage$0.75$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.60$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population156.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.