Lynne Tillman (born 1947) is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is currently Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany and is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, one collection of essays, and two other nonfiction books.
Tillman's novels include No Lease on Life (1998), Cast in Doubt (1992), Motion Sickness (1991), and Haunted Houses (1987).
Absence Makes the Heart (1990) is Tillman's first collection of short stories. The Broad Picture (1997) is a collection of Tillman's essays, which were published originally in literary and art periodicals. In 1995, Tillman's nonfiction work, The Velvet Years: Warhol's Factory 1965-1967, was published with photographs by Stephen Shore; it presented 18 Factory personalities' narratives, based on interviews with them, as well as her critical essay on Andy 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 and social history of a literary landmark where writers and artists congregated for nearly 20 years.
Her other story collections are The Madame Realism Complex (1992) and, most recently, This Is Not It (2002), stories written in response to the work of 22 contemporary artists. Her most recent novel, American Genius, A Comedy, was published in 2006 by Soft Skull Press.
She lives in Manhattan with the musician David Hofstra. Her personal papers were purchased by the Fales Library at New York University.
She was a 2006 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently the Fiction Editor at FENCE magazine.