It's the birthday of writer Dorothy Allison, born in Greenville, South Carolina

It's the birthday of writer Dorothy Allison, born in Greenville, South Carolina (1949) to an unwed 15-year-old [mother] who'd dropped out of seventh grade and worked as a waitress. Allison grew up desperately poor, and was sexually abused by her stepfather. But she was inspired by the confidence her teachers and classmates had in her intelligence. 'Because they did not see poverty and hopelessness as a foregone conclusion for my life,' she wrote, 'I could begin to imagine other futures for myself.'

She won a National Merit Scholarship and was the first person in her family to attend college. There, in the late '60s, she was introduced to the Feminist movement, which she said 'was like opening your eyes under water. It hurt, but suddenly everything that had been dark and mysterious became visible and open to change.' She wrote a memoir about her childhood and family history, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure (1995), but it is her earlier novel, Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), that she's best known for.

Allison said, 'People want biography. People want memoir. They want you to tell them that the story you're telling them is true. The thing I'm telling you is true, but it did not always happen to me.'

Writer's Almanac