Lisa Alther
Lisa Alther | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 23, 1944 Kingsport, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Wellesley College (BA) |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Lisa Alther (born July 23, 1944) is an American author and novelist.[1][2]
Personal life
[edit]Alther was born in Kingsport, Tennessee, in 1944. Her father was a surgeon, while her mother was a homemaker. She has three brothers and a sister.[3]
She graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in English literature in 1966. She then attended the Publishing Procedures Course at Radcliffe College.
After graduation Alther worked briefly for Atheneum Publishers in New York before moving to rural Vermont. Alther wrote fiction steadily for years, without success, collecting more than 250 rejection slips without getting published. She was stubborn however, and determined to succeed. When she finally succeeded, with Kinflicks in 1975, the novel was phenomenally successful.[4]
Alther now divides her time among East Tennessee, Vermont, and New York City. She has one daughter.[5]
Career
[edit]Alther is the author of six contemporary novels, Kinflicks, Original Sins, Other Women, Bedrock, Five Minutes In Heaven, and Swan Song, as well as a small number of published short stories and many magazine articles. She also wrote Washed in the Blood, a three-part historical novel concerning the earliest European settlement of the southern Appalachians. All of her novels include lesbian or bisexual women characters.[6] She is also known for her humor writing.[7]
She has also written two non-fiction books, Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree—the Search for My Melungeon Ancestors (2007; ISBN 1-55970-832-8) and Blood Feud: The Hatfields and the McCoys: The Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance (2012; ISBN 978-0762779185).
Alther has taught Southern fiction at Saint Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont, and at East Tennessee State University, where she was awarded the Basler Chair.[3]
Between 1978 and 1980, Alther lived in London, where she became friends with Doris Lessing. Lessing took an interest in Kinflicks and helped get the work published in London through a contact at Alfred A. Knopf.[8]
It was through Lessing that Alther met the writer, thinker and teacher of Sufi mysticism, Idries Shah. Shah had adapted many Sufi classical works and teaching stories for contemporary readers, and, taking a great interest in these works, Alther read them all,[8] and she also wrote reviews for Shah's books, such as World Tales.[9] In 2020 Alther received the Idries Shah Foundation Award for Human Achievement for “contributions to literature.”[10]
Bibliography
[edit]- Kinflicks (1975)
- Original Sins (1981)
- Other Women (1985)
- Bedrock (1990)
- Five Minutes In Heaven (1995)[11]
- Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree--the Search for My Melungeon Ancestors (2007)
- Washed in the Blood (2011)
- Blood Feud: The Hatfields and the McCoys: The Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance (2012)
Reviews
[edit]- Original Sins - Review by Carolyn Clay in The Boston Phoenix (7 July 1981)
- Other Women - briefly noted in The New Yorker 60/49 (21 January 1985): 94
References
[edit]- ^ "Lisa Alther: American Cultural Humorist". Vermont Women. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
- ^ Clark, Alice; Delmas, Sarah; Moulinoux, Nicole; Préher, Gérald; Spill, Frédérique (December 1, 2016). ""… trying to find out how to balance tragedy and comedy": an Interview with Lisa Alther". Journal of the Short Story in English. Les Cahiers de la nouvelle (67): 283–299. ISSN 1969-6108.
- ^ a b "Lisa Alther: Biography". www.lisaalther.com. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
- ^ "Lisa Alther - Everything2.com". everything2.com. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
- ^ "Lisa Alther | The Flying Pig Bookstore". www.flyingpigbooks.com. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
- ^ "interview". www.artvt.com. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
- ^ "February/March 2016 - Lisa Alther: American Cultural Humorist by Elayne Clift". www.vermontwoman.com. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
- ^ a b Alther, Lisa; Gilot, Francoise (November 2015). About Women: Conversations Between a Writer and a Painter. New York: Nan Talese Books, Knopf Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385539869.
- ^ Alther, Lisa (October 21, 1979). "Tales From All Over". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 21, 2018. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
- ^ Cqv13IzvHS8n (May 4, 2020). "Lisa Alther Receives Idries Shah Foundation Award". The Authors Guild. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Perrick, Penny (July 22, 1995). "Just lighten up, Lisa (book review)". Times of London. ProQuest 318306181.
External links
[edit]
- 1944 births
- Living people
- People from Kingsport, Tennessee
- 20th-century American novelists
- American women novelists
- American women short story writers
- Wellesley College alumni
- Appalachian writers
- Novelists from Tennessee
- People from Chittenden County, Vermont
- 20th-century American women writers
- 21st-century American women writers
- 20th-century American short story writers
- 21st-century American short story writers
- Writers from Tennessee
- Radcliffe College alumni