He was the author of seven collections of short stories and was a professor emeritus of English at the Ohio State University in Columbus.
In addition to lecturing on the art of fiction writing, Abbott has taught at several colleges, starting as an assistant professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in 1977.
Abbott was married to Pamela Jo Dennis, bookseller of children's books and expert quilter, whom he called in his correspondences the "Sweetheart of the Rodeo."
Sung as we used to sing about what we thought was love in those days, it will no more touch you than trouble among South Pole penguins or quarrel across town; it will seem to you now as it seemed to me then—a condition fetched up to disturb the small minds we celebrate."
Although he made occasional attempts at novel writing, Abbott devoted himself almost exclusively to the craft of the short story.
On that subject—in interviews, the classroom, darkened halls, and din-crammed pubs—he loved to quote the cult film Buckaroo Banzai, " 'Character is what we are in the dark.'
"[10] The often anthologized "The Era of Great Numbers", first published in Dreams of Distant Lives (1990), is perhaps his best known and most extravagant "trash compactor" story.
[citation needed] Abbott's many influences included Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Joan Didion, John Casey, and R.V.
[10][11] Although Abbott arrived on the fiction scene during a time when minimalism was in fashion, critic William Giraldi said of Abbott's debut, "The Heart Never Fits Its Wanting is an orgy of style, one that performs the magic trick of being at once inebriated and exact—his narrators akin to world-class drinkers who can down a fifth of Jim Beam and still stand straight.