Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allisonis an American writer from South Carolina whose writing expresses themes of class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. She has won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. She was elected in xxxx as a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth11 April 1949
CountryUnited States of America
access bookstores literature readers specific stories
Independent presses and bookstores give access to literature specific to a place. Readers can find stories they need.
believe healing literature
There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto-God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.
writing people body
The bottom line is I'm writing to save the dead. I'm writing to save the people I have lost, some of whose bodies are still walking around.
book survival dying
my life has been saved over and over again by picking up a book in which someone captured the whole experience of being despised and not dying.
wall pain fall
For years and years, I convinced myself that I was unbreakable, an animal with an animal strength or something not human at all. Me, I told people, I take damage like a wall, a brick wall that never falls down, never feels anything, never flinches or remembers. I am one woman but I carry in my body all the stories I have ever been told, women I have known, women who have taken damage until they tell themselves they can feel no pain at all.
challenges important equal
It's important to set challenges that you're not sure you're equal to.
fun people fiction
It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect.
jobs want able
I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing.
character creating secret
I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.
memories terrible
I have a terrible memory.
thinking world
And while it is true that I got the best woman in the world, I don't think love saves you.
love-you writing character
I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.
thinking movement ifs
I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement.
mother pieces stolen
Piece by piece, my mother is being stolen from me.