Lesbian writer and activist Dorothy Allison will come to the University of Wyoming this month as part of the MFA Visiting Writers Series. She will read from her work at 5:10 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 12 in Classroom Building 310. A Q&A session and book signing will follow.The event is free and open to the public. Parking is free on campus after 5 p.m., which partially explains the 5:10 start for the event.
Dorothy Allison describes herself as "a feminist, a working-class storyteller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet, and a happily born-again Californian."
"What I am here for is to tell you stories you may not want to hear," says Allison. "What I am here for is to rescue my dead. And to scare hell out of you now and then."
Her novel, Bastard Out of Carolina, was published in 1992 to wide acclaim — and occasional controversy, for its graphic depictions of poverty and child abuse. The New York Times Book Review proclaimed the novel "as close to flawless as any reader could ask for" and praised Allison’s "perfect ear for speech and its natural rhythms."
Allison’s best-selling second novel Cavedweller (1998) won the Lambda Literary Award. Among her other books are the short story collection Trash (2002), a memoir, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure (1996), a book of essays, Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature (1995), and two books of poetry. She is at work on her third novel, She Who, due out in 2009.
Read an article of Allison's from last Sunday's New York Times Magazine food section at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Food-t.html?
The writer's visit to Laramie is made possible by an endowment from the state of Wyoming, and supported in part by a grant from the Wyoming Arts Council, through funding from the Wyoming State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Spectrum, UW’s LGBT student organization, and by the Rainbow Resource Center of the Office for Multicultural Affairs.
