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
thinking movement ifs
I think I would have died if there hadn't been the women's movement.
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.
running past thinking
I wanted to start over completely, to begin again as new people with nothing of the past left over. I wanted to run away from who we had been seen to be, who we had been... It's the first thing I think of when trouble comes - the geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over. What hides behind that impulse is the conviction that the life you have lived, the person you are, is valueless, better off abandoned, that running away is easier than trying to change things, that change itself is not possible.
happening obsessed starts
Where story comes from, I don't know. I know that I become obsessed with something. An idea, an image, a person, the way a person talks. And then something starts happening that I can't explain, and it has a lot to do with language.
boxes buying copy flats food gallon next people pickup trucks wonderful
I think it's wonderful that people in pickup trucks are buying two flats of dog food and a copy of 'Bastard.' I want my view of the world to be right up there next to gallon boxes of Tide.
asks author born grown knows means poor stories sure worked
My son, Wolf, was born when I was past 40 and the author of a best-selling novel. That means he has grown up a middle-class child - one who sometimes asks me for stories of my childhood but knows nothing of what it means to grow up poor and afraid. I have worked to make sure of that.
desire prove successful
If you write a book that's as powerful and successful as 'Bastard,' there's a strong desire to prove there's something else.
assumption began believed genuinely money people therefore
My assumption when I began writing was that you were never going to make any money. And you were never going to reach everyone. Therefore you had to do as much as you could in the service of something you genuinely believed in. And if you do that and people get upset, well, there you go.