Editing John Updike (section)

==Early life and education==
[[File:JOHN UPDIKE CHILDHOOD HOME, SHILLINGTON, BERKS COUNTY.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[John Updike Childhood Home|Updike's boyhood home]] in [[Shillington, Pennsylvania]]]]
Updike was born in [[Reading, Pennsylvania]], the only child of [[Linda Grace Hoyer Updike|Linda Grace]] (née Hoyer) and [[Wesley Russell Updike]], and was raised at his [[John Updike Childhood Home|childhood home]] in the nearby small town of [[Shillington, Pennsylvania|Shillington]].<ref>{{cite web|title= John Updike Biography and Interview |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=[[American Academy of Achievement]]|url=  https://achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/#interview}}</ref> The family later moved to the [[unincorporated area|unincorporated]] village of [[Plowville, Pennsylvania|Plowville]]. His mother's attempts to become a published writer impressed the young Updike. "One of my earliest memories", he later recalled, "is of seeing her at her desk ... I admired the writer's equipment, the typewriter eraser, the boxes of clean paper. And I remember the brown envelopes that stories would go off in—and come back in."<ref>{{cite news | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE6D91E39F937A25752C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all | title =Nibbled at By Neighbors| work = The New York Times| date = January 14, 1990 | first1 =Andrea|last1 =Barrett | access-date =May 7, 2010}}</ref>

These early years in [[Berks County, Pennsylvania]], would influence the environment of the Rabbit Angstrom [[tetralogy]], as well as many of his early novels and short stories.<ref name = "boswell" /> Updike graduated from [[Governor Mifflin Senior High School|Shillington High School]] as co-[[valedictorian]] and class president in 1950 and received a full scholarship to [[Harvard College]], where he was the roommate of [[Christopher Lasch]] during their first year.<ref>Lasch, Christopher. ''Plain Style : A Guide to Written English.'' University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, p. 6.</ref> Updike had already received recognition for his writing as a teenager by winning a [[Alliance for Young Artists & Writers#The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards|Scholastic Art & Writing Award]],<ref>Scholastic Inc. Art & Writing Awards, Alumni, http://www.artandwriting.org/who-we-are/alumni/</ref> and at Harvard he soon became well known among his classmates as a talented and prolific contributor to ''[[The Harvard Lampoon]]'', of which he was president.<ref name ="boswell"/> He studied with dramatist [[Robert Chapman (playwright)|Robert Chapman]], the director of Harvard's Loeb Drama Center.<ref>{{cite news|title=Robert Chapman, 81, Playwright And Retired Harvard Professor|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/24/arts/robert-chapman-81-playwright-and-retired-harvard-professor.html|author=Eric Pace|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=October 24, 2000}}</ref> He graduated ''[[summa cum laude]]'' in 1954 with a degree in English and was elected to [[Phi Beta Kappa]].<ref name ="boswell">Boswell, Marshall. [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4502 "John Updike"], ''The Literary Encyclopedia'', March 18, 2004</ref>

Upon graduation, Updike attended the [[Ruskin School of Art]] at the [[University of Oxford]] with the ambition of becoming a [[cartoonist]].<ref>{{Citation | first = Jeet | last = Heer | url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/mar/20/fiction.johnupdike | title = John Updike's animated ambitions | newspaper = The Guardian | date = March 20, 2004}}.</ref> After returning to the United States, Updike and his family moved to New York, where he became a regular contributor to ''[[The New Yorker]]''. This was the beginning of his professional writing career.<ref name = "boswell" />