Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison is an American writer, speaker, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Themes in Allison's work include class struggle, child and sexual abuse, women, lesbianism, feminism, and family.
Allison's first novel, the semi-autobiographical Bastard Out of Carolina, was published in 1992 and was one of five finalists for the 1992 National Book Award.
Allison founded The Independent Spirit Award in 1998, a prize given annually to an individual whose work within the small press and independent bookstore circuit has helped sustain that enterprise.
“Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different..." from Two or Three Things i Know For Sure”
Dorothy Allison
“Everything that comes to us is a blessing or a test. That’s all you need to know in this life…just the certainty that God’s got His eye on you, that He knows what you are made of, what you need to grow on. Why,questioning’s a sin, it’s pointless. He will show you your path in His own good time. And long as I remember that, I’m fine.”
Dorothy Allison
“Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.”
Dorothy Allison
“Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.”
Dorothy Allison
“Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form.”
Dorothy Allison
“My heart broke all over again. I wanted my life back, my mama, but I knew I would never have that. The child I had been was gone with the child she had been. We were new people, and we didn't know each other anymore. I shook my head desperately.”
Dorothy Allison
“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
“Delia picked at the raw sores of her conscience...Drunk or sober, Delia lived in the small town in her heart, ignoring the world in which all her love had turned to grief.”
Dorothy Allison