Fredrick Barthelme (born October 10, 1943) is an American author of short fiction and novels and has been the thirty-three year director of The Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi.He has also been the editor of the nationally recognized literary journal Mississippi Review.
Barthelme was born in Houston, Texas. His father, Donald Barthelme, Sr., was a well-known and highly active Modernist architect in the city. The atmosphere of intellectual and aesthetic vigor encouraged by the their father, pervasive in Barthelme family life, is described in Double Down, a memoir co-written by Frederick and his brother, Steven. Their other brothers, Donald, and Peter, emerged from the creative household to become authors as well. While Frederick pursued talents in several creative fields, including painting and music, he eventually chose to focus on fiction writing: receiving his M.A. in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with the influential novelist John Barth. Although Barthelme focussed his attention on writing, he didn't abandon his interest in music, as he was a founding member of the avant-garde psychedelic rock band The Red Krayola.
Barthelme's works are known for their focus on the landscape of the New South. He has been labeled a minimalist alongside other writers like Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, and Mary Robison, and has also been branded with labels like "dirty realist" or "K-mart realist." He published his first short story in The New Yorker, and has claimed that a rotisserie chicken helped him understand that he needed to write about ordinary people. He has moved away from the postmodern stylings of his older brother, Donald Barthelme, though his brother's influence can be seen in his earliest works, Rangoon and War and War.
Barthelme also has been the thirty-three year editor of Mississippi Review , which published Larry Brown, Curtis Sittenfeld, Amy Hempel, and others early in their careers. Issues of Mississippi Review have been guest-edited by Rick Moody and Mary Robison among others.