Adam Begley, who is under contract to produce an as-yet-untitled biography of John Updike for HarperCollins, writes that the work is going well and that there’s enthusiastic support for the project. In addition to a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship that got him started, he has received a 2011-12 fellowship from The Leon Levy Center for Biography, based on a section from the third chapter that he submitted. The chapter details the 18 months that Updike spent in New York City.

Research is progressing nicely, Begley says, adding that he still was work to do in Pennsylvania and that he’s in the middle of a long fourth chapter about Ipswich. “I spend most of every day with John Updike,” Begley writes, “and after more than two years I can report that I haven’t been bored for a minute.”

Begley says he’s hoping to have a first draft completed by the end of June 2012 so he will be free when new Updike materials at the Houghton Library become available to researchers in July 2012. Publication of the biography is set for sometime in 2013.