This is fascinating-I encourage all of you to read it. Tess Gallagher was Ray Carver's second wife. She's written a book about his 'first drafts' that challenge the belief that Carver was a minimalist. Writing is rewriting and sometimes editors rewrite your words best-hard to believe-but true.

Raymond Carver is my all time favorite author-the best short story writer(Catherine Ryan Hyde is close behind) that I've ever read. Read what his editor at Knopf did to his stories. Amazing.

The Real Carver: Expansive or Minimal?

Published: October 17, 2007

Tess Gallagher, the widow of Raymond Carver, one of the most celebrated American short-story writers of the 20th century, is spearheading an effort to publish a volume of 17 original Carver stories whose highly edited versions were published in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” his breakout 1981 book.

Largely as a result of that collection, which became a literary sensation, Carver was credited with popularizing a minimalist style. But many of his fans have been aware of reports that Gordon Lish, Carver’s first editor at Alfred A. Knopf, had heavily edited, and in many cases radically cut, the stories before publication to hone the author’s voice. At the time, Carver begged Mr. Lish to stop production of the book. But Knopf went ahead and published it, to much critical acclaim.

Ms. Gallagher, who is also a novelist and poet, wants to see the original stories published as a volume called “Beginners,” the title that Carver gave to the story that became the title story in “What We Talk About.”

A document that compares the edited and original versions of Raymond Carver's stories (pdf)

The Carver Chronicles (August 9, 1998)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/books/17carver.html?ex=1350360000&en=94a0c5f6f2a1d219&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink