{{short description|American author and novelist}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2020}} {{infobox writer |name=Lisa Alther |birth_date={{birth date and age|1944|7|23}} |birth_place=Kingsport, Tennessee, U.S. |occupation={{flatlist| *Author *novelist }} |education=Wellesley College (BA) |children=1 |website={{URL|http://www.lisaalther.com}} }} '''Lisa Alther''' (born July 23, 1944) is an American author and novelist.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vermontwoman.com/articles/2016/0216/03lisa-alther/lisa-alther.html| title= Lisa Alther: American Cultural Humorist |website=Vermont Women|accessdate=2020-07-02}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Clark|first1=Alice|last2=Delmas|first2=Sarah|last3=Moulinoux|first3=Nicole|last4=Préher|first4=Gérald|last5=Spill|first5=Frédérique|date=2016-12-01|title="… trying to find out how to balance tragedy and comedy": an Interview with Lisa Alther|url=http://journals.openedition.org/jsse/1775|journal=Journal of the Short Story in English. Les Cahiers de la nouvelle|language=en|issue=67|pages=283–299|issn=1969-6108}}</ref>
==Personal life== 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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Lisa Alther: Biography|url=http://www.lisaalther.com/biography.html|access-date=2020-10-09|website=www.lisaalther.com}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lisa Alther - Everything2.com|url=https://everything2.com/title/Lisa+Alther|access-date=2020-10-09|website=everything2.com}}</ref>
Alther now divides her time among East Tennessee, Vermont, and New York City. She has one daughter.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lisa Alther {{!}} The Flying Pig Bookstore|url=https://www.flyingpigbooks.com/lisa-alther|access-date=2020-10-09|website=www.flyingpigbooks.com}}</ref>
== Career == 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=interview|url=http://www.artvt.com/writers/alther/p_altherintrws.htm|access-date=2020-10-09|website=www.artvt.com}}</ref> She is also known for her humor writing.<ref>{{Cite web|title=February/March 2016 - Lisa Alther: American Cultural Humorist by Elayne Clift|url=https://www.vermontwoman.com/articles/2016/0216/03lisa-alther/lisa-alther.html|access-date=2020-10-09|website=www.vermontwoman.com}}</ref>
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.<ref name=":0" />
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.<ref name="About Women">{{cite book | last1 = Alther | first1 = Lisa | last2 = Gilot | first2 = Francoise | authorlink = | title = About Women: Conversations Between a Writer and a Painter | publisher = Nan Talese Books, Knopf Doubleday | date = Nov 2015 | location = New York | pages = | isbn = 978-0385539869 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5vGBgAAQBAJ}}</ref>
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,<ref name="About Women" /> and she also wrote reviews for Shah's books, such as ''World Tales''.<ref name="LiaAltherNYT">{{cite web | last = Alther | first = Lisa | author-link = Lisa Alther | title = Tales From All Over | work = The New York Times | date = 21 Oct 1979 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/21/archives/tales-from-all-over-world-tales-folk-tales.html | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180921083056/https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/21/archives/tales-from-all-over-world-tales-folk-tales.html | archive-date = 21 September 2018 | url-status = live | accessdate = 21 Sep 2018}}</ref> In 2020 Alther received the Idries Shah Foundation Award for Human Achievement for “contributions to literature.”<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cqv13IzvHS8n |date=2020-05-04 |title=Lisa Alther Receives Idries Shah Foundation Award |url=https://authorsguild.org/member-awards/lisa-alther-receives-idries-shah-foundation-award/ |access-date=2024-04-24 |website=The Authors Guild |language=en-US}}</ref>
==Bibliography== * ''Kinflicks'' (1975) * ''Original Sins'' (1981) * ''Other Women'' (1985) * ''Bedrock'' (1990) * ''Five Minutes In Heaven'' (1995)<ref name="PerrickLightenUp">{{cite news|last1=Perrick|first1=Penny|title=Just lighten up, Lisa (book review)|publisher=Times of London|date=22 July 1995|id={{ProQuest|318306181}}}}</ref> * ''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 == * ''Original Sins'' - [https://archive.org/details/sim_boston-phoenix_1981-07-07_10_27/page/n65/mode/1up 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== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.lisaalther.com/ Lisa Alther Official Home Page] *[http://www.artvt.com/writers/alther/p_altherbio.htm An Autobiographical Essay] *[http://www.artvt.com/writers/alther/p_altherintrws.htm An Interview with Lisa Alther] *[http://www.lisaalther.com/essay3.html Essay on Lisa Alther] *[http://www.lisaalther.com/guide.html A Reader's Guide to the Fiction of Lisa Alther] *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZSUxajTq-0 Video Interview]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Alther, Lisa}} Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:People from Kingsport, Tennessee Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American women short story writers Category:Wellesley College alumni Category:Appalachian writers Category:Novelists from Tennessee Category:People from Chittenden County, Vermont Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:21st-century American women writers Category:20th-century American short story writers Category:21st-century American short story writers Category:Writers from Tennessee Category:Radcliffe College alumni