High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Anita Shreve (born 1946) is an American writer. The daughter of an airline pilot and a homemaker, she graduated from Dedham High School, attended Tufts University and began writing while working as a high school teacher in Reading MA. One of her first published stories, Past the Island, Drifting, (published in 1975) was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1976 .