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Dorothy Allison

Born

in Greenville, South Carolina, The United States

April 11, 1949

Died

November 06, 2024

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Gay & Lesbian

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Dorothy Allison was an American writer whose work confronted class struggle, poverty, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism, lesbian identity, and family violence. A self-identified femme lesbian, she drew extensively on her own experiences, transforming painful memories into fiction, poetry, and essays. Raised in a poor family in South Carolina and Florida, Allison found refuge in education and became the first member of her family to graduate from high school. She studied anthropology at Florida Presbyterian College and later earned a master's degree in urban anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Before establishing herself as a writer, she held numerous jobs and edited the feminist magazine Amazing Grace. Her first poetry c Dorothy Allison was an American writer whose work confronted class struggle, poverty, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism, lesbian identity, and family violence. A self-identified femme lesbian, she drew extensively on her own experiences, transforming painful memories into fiction, poetry, and essays. Raised in a poor family in South Carolina and Florida, Allison found refuge in education and became the first member of her family to graduate from high school. She studied anthropology at Florida Presbyterian College and later earned a master's degree in urban anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Before establishing herself as a writer, she held numerous jobs and edited the feminist magazine Amazing Grace. Her first poetry collection, The Women Who Hate Me, appeared in 1983, followed by Trash in 1988. Her acclaimed novel Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), a finalist for the National Book Award, brought her widespread recognition and was later adapted into a controversial television film. Allison also wrote Cavedweller and published further collections of poetry and short stories. She founded the Independent Spirit Award in 1998 to support writers associated with small presses and independent bookstores. Her writing was influenced by authors including Flannery O'Connor, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, and Judy Grahn. Allison was active in feminist and lesbian communities and advocated for safer sex. She and Jo Arnone cofounded the Lesbian Sex Mafia in 1981. Her honors included Lambda Literary Awards, the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction, the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize, and the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was elected to the Fellowship of Southern Writers and received the Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society. In later years, Allison lived in California with her partner, Alix Layman, and her son, Wolf Michael. She was working on the unfinished novel She Who when Layman died in 2022. Allison died of cancer in 2024, leaving a body of work that made marginalized experiences central to American literature and queer literary culture, and became an influential literary voice. ...more

2 posts
Dorothy Allison's Blog

Dorothy Allison isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Smart Women and Publishing

(This is an account of remarks I made at AWP in Chicago February 14th, 2009 (Valentine's Day) on the panel on Smart Women and publishing. As is so often the case, I did not actually deliver the talk I had prepared to deliver at AWP—though I drew from that talk in my remarks. I had to cut it by half and reorganize it when time ran short, so some of what I did will be lost forever, but some of it ..

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Dorothy Allison’s books

Average rating: 4.11 · 73,774 ratings · 5,977 reviews · 65 distinct works • Similar authors

	Bastard Out of Carolina 4.15 avg rating — 49,349 ratings — published 1992 — 64 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Two or Three Things I Know for Sure 4.14 avg rating — 6,367 ratings — published 1995 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Trash 4.12 avg rating — 5,699 ratings — published 1988 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cavedweller 3.75 avg rating — 4,388 ratings — published 1998 — 43 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Skin: Talking About Sex, Class And Literature 4.28 avg rating — 2,671 ratings — published 1994 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Women Who Hate Me: Poetry, 1980-1990 4.14 avg rating — 527 ratings — published 1983 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bastard Out of Carolina / Two or Three Things I Know For Sure 4.05 avg rating — 516 ratings — published 1995 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House by Dorothy Allison, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender (Goodreads Author) 4.14 avg rating — 378 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Best of Tin House: Stories 3.88 avg rating — 94 ratings — published 2006	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Catherine Opie: American Photographer by Dorothy Allison, Jennifer Blessing, Nat Trotman 4.39 avg rating — 28 ratings — published 2008 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Dorothy Allison (?)

“Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.”
― Dorothy Allison, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

1800 likes

“Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.”
― Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina

tags: lies, lying, truth

1122 likes

“The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal.”
― Dorothy Allison

112 likes

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Polls

What shall we read in April, 2026? Books published in or before 1990.

Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories, by Flannery O'Connor

9 votes 30.0%

Trash, by Dorothy Allison

6 votes 20.0%

Cross Creek, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

6 votes 20.0%

Traveller, by Richard Adams

6 votes 20.0%

The Shepherd of the Hills, by Harold Bell Wrightx`

3 votes 10.0%

30 total votes

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Dorothy Allison’s Followers (1,903)

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Dorothy Allison

2 postsDorothy Allison's Blog

Smart Women and Publishing

Combine EditionsDorothy Allison’s books

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Videos

2 posts
Dorothy Allison's Blog

Combine Editions
Dorothy Allison’s books