Lisa Alther
Lisa Alther (born July 23, 1944) is an American author and novelist.
Lisa Alther
- Born
- 1944. · Kingsport.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- novelist and writer.
- Education
- Wellesley College and Dobyns Bennett High School.
- Languages
- English.
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Lisa Alther (born July 23, 1944) is an American author and novelist.
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Lisa Alther (born 1944) is a novelist and writer, of American nationality. The novelist was born in Kingsport. Lisa Alther was educated at Dobyns Bennett High School and Wellesley College. Languages used include English.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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wikidata · Q273911 · wikipedia · Lisa Alther
In this article
Personal life
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. 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. Alther now divides her time among East Tennessee, Vermont, and New York City. She has one daughter.
Career
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. She is also known for her humor writing. She has also written two non-fiction books, Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree—the Search for My Melungeon Ancestors (2007) and Blood Feud: The Hatfields and the McCoys: The Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance (2012). 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. 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. 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, and she also wrote reviews for Shah's books, such as World Tales. In 2020 Alther received the Idries Shah Foundation Award for Human Achievement for “contributions to literature.”
Reviews
Reviews
• Original Sins - 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
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1944
Lisa Alther born at Kingsport.
References ==== External links
References ==== External links
• Lisa Alther Official Home Page • An Autobiographical Essay • An Interview with Lisa Alther • Essay on Lisa Alther • A Reader's Guide to the Fiction of Lisa Alther • Video Interview
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Lisa Alther: American Cultural Humorist. Vermont Women.
- 2.Clark, Alice. "… trying to find out how to balance tragedy and comedy": an Interview with Lisa Alther. Journal of the Short Story in English. Les Cahiers de la nouvelle. 67. 283–299. 2016-12-01. 1969-6108.
- 3.Lisa Alther: Biography. www.lisaalther.com.
- 4.Lisa Alther - Everything2.com. everything2.com.
- 5.Lisa Alther The Flying Pig Bookstore. www.flyingpigbooks.com.
- 6.interview. www.artvt.com.
- 7.February/March 2016 - Lisa Alther: American Cultural Humorist by Elayne Clift. www.vermontwoman.com.
- 8.Alther, Lisa. About Women: Conversations Between a Writer and a Painter. Nan Talese Books, Knopf Doubleday. Nov 2015. 978-0385539869.
- 9.Alther, Lisa. Tales From All Over. The New York Times. 21 Oct 1979.
- 10.Cqv13IzvHS8n. Lisa Alther Receives Idries Shah Foundation Award. The Authors Guild. 2020-05-04.
- 11.Perrick, Penny. Just lighten up, Lisa (book review). Times of London. 22 July 1995.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 8
- Kinflicks (1975)
- Original Sins (1981)
- Other Women (1985)
- Bedrock (1990)
- Perrick, Penny. Just lighten up, Lisa (book review). Times of London. 22 July 1995.
- 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)
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q273911: Lisa AltherWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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