Advice for Emerging Writers from Dorothy Allison

Dorothy Allison has left her mark on generations of readers and helped redefine Southern storytelling in the 20th century. With tough heroines (Bone in Bastard Out of Carolina and Cavedweller's Delia Byrd among them) and the vivid worlds they inhabit—visceral, violent, challenging, but marked by poignancy and love—she has established herself as a force in literature. Allison's frank examinations of class, gender, and sexuality have earned her critical praise as well as popularity. Bastard Out of Carolina received an ALA Award for Lesbian and Gay Writing and was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Cavedweller became a New York Times bestseller and then a film. Join her and Booklist senior editor Donna Seaman for a conversation about the power and influence of the writer's voice in current American culture.

Dorothy Allison was born in Greenville, South Carolina but now makes her home in Northern California, with her partner, Alix, and her son, Wolf Michael. She is the author of the prize-winning novels, Bastard out of Carolina and Cavedweller, as well as Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, Trash, Skin, and a book of poetry, The Women Who Hate Me. Her new novel, She Who, is forthcoming from Penguin.

This program is generously underwritten in part by Esther S. Saks.