Lynne Tillman, Associate Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany, is the author of four novels, two collections of short stories, one collection of essays and two nonfiction books. She has collaborated often with artists and writes regularly on culture.
Tillman's novels include No Lease on Life (1997) which was a New York Times Notable Book of 1998 and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Cast in Doubt (1992), Motion Sickness (1991), and Haunted Houses (1995). Booklist reviewer Janet St John called No Lease on Life, which profiles one day in the life of a single woman living in New York City, "an urban vignette of meditation on the realness and ridiculousness of daily living."
Absence Makes the Heart (1990) and The Broad Picture (1997) are both collections of Tillman's essays that were published in literary and art periodicals. In 1995, Tillman's The Velvet Years: Wharhol's Factory 1965-1967, was published with photographs by Stephen Shore, and it presented Factory personalities' narratives as well as her critical essay on Warhol, his art and studio. Tillman is also the author of the nonfiction book The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co. (1999) a cultural history of a literary landmark, where writers and artists would congregate for nearly 20 years.