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Elizabeth Inness-Brown
BornElizabeth Ann Inness-Brown
May 1, 1954 (age 61)
Rochester, New York
OccupationNovelist & Educator
LanguageEnglish
Alma materSt. Lawrence University, 1976 Columbia University, 1978
Notable worksBurning Marguerite, Here, Satin Palms
Notable awardsPushcart Prize, VII (1982-1983)

Elizabeth Inness-Brown is an American novelist, short story writer, educator, and contributing editor at Boulevard.[1] She is a Professor of English at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont and lives in South Hero, Vermont—one of three islands comprising Grand Isle County—with her husband and son.[2] Known for her prose writing, Inness-Brown has published a novel, Burning Marguerite, as well as two short story collections, titled Here and Satin Palms. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, North American Review, Boulevard, Glimmer Train, Madcap Review, and various other journals. Inness-Brown has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for Writing[3] and has completed residencies at Yaddo[4] and The Millay Colony for the Arts.[5] In 1982, her short story "Release, Surrender" appeared in Volume VII of the Pushcart Prize.[6][7]

Early Life[edit]

Born in Rochester, New York on May 1, 1954, Inness-Brown is the daughter of Hugh Alwyn Inness-Brown, MD and Doris Joan Morath.[8] In 1959, her grandmother, Virginia Portia Royall Inness-Brown, became the first recipient of the Handel Medallion[9], an award given to individuals for their extraordinary contributions to the cultural life of New York City.[10] When she was a child, Inness-Brown’s family moved to Louisiana, North Dakota, and Texas before settling in St. Lawrence County, New York, part of a region known as The North Country.[11] In 2001, Inness-Brown wrote about the region in an essay titled "North Country Girls."[12]

Education[edit]

Inness-Brown received a B.A. in Fine Arts from St. Lawrence University in 1976 and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 1978.[2] She was a member of the editorial staff at Columbia, a literary journal founded in 1977 by students in the Columbia University School of the Arts Graduate Writing program.[13] Inness-Brown interviewed Grace Paley for the journal’s second issue alongside fellow staff members Celeste Conway, Laura Levine, Mark Teich, and Keith Monley, whom she would marry a decade later.[14] [15]

Writing and Reception[edit]

Inness-Brown began her teaching career at the University of Southern Mississippi,[15] where she finished work on Satin Palms, a short story collection she had begun in graduate school. Impressed with the collection, Mary Robison blurbed that “These stories are so classy and smart and important I get dressed up to read them.”[16] During her first sabbatical, Inness-Brown completed a residency at Yaddo[4], an artists’ community located in Saratoga Springs, New York. There, she intended to write a novel, but instead began to work on a number of stories that would eventually be included in Here, her second short story collection.[11]

In 1984, Inness-Brown guest-edited Vol. 12, No. 3 of the Mississippi Review alongside journal Editor Frederick Barthelme,[17] who would later write a blurb for her second collection. Unlike Satin Palms, which featured a number of previously unpublished pieces, the majority of stories published in Here had already appeared in various literary journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, Boulevard, Glimmer Train, and Mississippi Review. Reviews of the collection were mixed, with Kirkus Reviews declaring it “Short fiction of an emerging polish, varyingly arresting.”[18] Philip E. Baruth, writing for New England Review, had an equally ambivalent take on the collection, stating that although “three or four of the stories… are masterful examples of the genre… there is little sense of scope or risk.”[19] Elaborating on this idea, Baruth later wrote that the short story categorization was incorrect, and suggested a number of alternative labels, including: “short-shorts, tales, prose poems, or memoir.”[19]

Inness Brown’s debut novel, Burning Marguerite, received more generous coverage. Ann Harleman, writing for The New York Times, called it “vivid yet concise”, stating that the dual narratives of the book “offer many pleasures, remarkably distilled.”[20] The novel is set mainly on the fictional Grain Island, though it departs for a time to New Orleans. The story follows two protagonists—Marguerite Deo, or Tante, and James Wright, the boy she raises—spanning the former’s nearly one hundred years of life. The book was hailed by Vermont Public Radio as a “tender, affecting tale,”[21] while the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that “The novel is largely engaging and masterfully controlled… The uniqueness of the story and Inness-Brown’s clear, confident writing make this a stunning debut.”[22]

Inness-Brown was an attendee of Fiction International/St. Lawrence University Writers’ Conference at Saranac Lake, founded by Joe David Bellamy, which hosted a cadre of students, faculty, and guests including Margaret Atwood, Annie Dillard, E.L. Doctorow, Jayne Anne Phillips, John Hawkes, Gail Godwin, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ann Beattie.[23] Bellamy himself was an ardent supporter of Inness-Brown’s work, writing that “Mary Robison, Lorrie Moore, Elizabeth Inness-Brown… and others sometimes identified with the latest heat wave have written some first-rate fiction that seems strongly influenced by postmodern sensibilities.”[24]

Published Work[edit]

Novels

  • Burning Marguerite (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)


Short Story Collections

  • Here: Stories (Louisiana State University Press, March 1994)
  • Satin Palms (Fiction International Press, 1981)


Short Stories

  • "In the Soup" (Seven Days, July 2005)
  • "Territory" (Cream City Review, Spring 1994)
  • "The Chef's Bride" (Boulevard, Fall 1992)
  • "The Surgeon" (Glimmer Train, Summer 1992)
  • "Stephen" (Mississippi Review, Spring-Summer 1989)
  • "Traveler" (North American Review, March 1989)
  • "Horse Dreams" (The New Yorker, September 1985)
  • "Release, Surrender" (Chelsea, Spring 1982)
  • "Blue Pagoda" (AWP Newsletter, Fall 1981)


Essays

  • "Twelve Days in October" (Madcap Review, July 2014)
  • "June" (The Twelve Seasons of Vermont, 2005)
  • "North Country Girls" (Living North Country: Essays on Landscape and Living in Northern New York, June 2001)

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Masthead." Boulevard. http://www.boulevardmagazine.org/about/ Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Elizabeth Inness-Brown, MFA." Saint Michael's College. http://www.smcvt.edu/pages/get-to-know-us/faculty/inness-brown-elizabeth.aspx Retrieved 25 February 2016
  3. ^ "NEA Literature Fellowships." National Endowment for the Arts. March 2006. http://scua.library.umass.edu/digital/mums686/mums686-NEA_lit.pdf Retrieved 29 February 2016
  4. ^ a b "Writers." Yaddo. http://yaddo.org/yaddo/artistlists.asp?hiddenaction=display&discipline=Writer&pagehead=Writers Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  5. ^ "Artists, Writers." Millay Colony. http://www.millaycolony.org/writers Retrieved 29 February 2016
  6. ^ "The Pushcart Prize, VII: Best of the Small Presses." WorldCat. http://www.worldcat.org/title/pushcart-prize-vii-best-of-the-small-presses-1982-1983-with-an-index-to-the-first-seven-volumes-an-annual-small-press-reader/oclc/8759664 Retrieved 29 February 2016
  7. ^ The Pushcart Prize, VII: Best of the Small Presses, 1982-1983. Pushcart Press. 1983.
  8. ^ "Obituary: Hugh A. Inness-Brown, MD." http://www.w2ib.com/family/obituary.html Retrieved 26 February 2016
  9. ^ "Handel Medallion Explained." Everything Explained Today. http://everything.explained.today/Handel_Medallion/
  10. ^ "Mayor Bloomberg and Whoopi Goldberg Present Mayor's Awards for Arts and Culture at New York City Center." NYC.gov. 20 February 2013. http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/069-13/mayor-bloomberg-whoopi-goldberg-present-mayor-s-awards-arts-culture-new-york-city Retrieved 26 February 2016
  11. ^ a b Birnbaum, Robert. Identity Theory. "Author Interview: Elizabeth Inness-Brown." 25 March 2002. http://www.identitytheory.com/elizabeth-inness-brown/ Retrieved 26 February 2016
  12. ^ "Excerpts from Living North Country: Essays of Life and Landscapes in Northern New York." North Country Books. June 2001. http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/livingnc.html Retrieved 29 February 2016
  13. ^ "About." Columbia. http://columbiajournal.org/about/ Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  14. ^ "Issue 2: Staff" Columbia. http://columbiajournal.org/print/issue-2/ Retrieved 19 November 2015
  15. ^ a b "Inness-Brown, Elizabeth (Ann) 1954-." Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. Gale / Cengage Learning. 2005.
  16. ^ Inness-Brown, Elizabeth. Satin Palms. Fiction International. St. Lawrence University. Canton, NY. 1981.
  17. ^ Mississippi Review. Vol. 12, No. 3. 1984
  18. ^ "Here: Stories." Kirkus Review. 20 May 2010. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/elizabeth-inness-brown/here/ Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  19. ^ a b Baruth, Philip E. "Obedience, Disobedience, and the Short Story: Two Recent Collections of Short Fiction." New England Review. Vol. 17, No. 1. Winter 1995. 180-184.
  20. ^ Harleman, Ann. "'Burning Marguerite': One Love, Two Stories." 12 May 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/books/review/12HARLEMT.html Retrieved 19 November 2015
  21. ^ Slayton, Tom. “New Voices.” Vermont Public Radio. 6 February 2002. http://www.vpr.net/episode/30543/new-voices/ Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  22. ^ Thomas, Christine. “Review in Brief.” San Francisco Chronicle. 24 February 2002. http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/REVIEWS-IN-BRIEF-2869743.php Retrieved 19 November 2015
  23. ^ Bellamy, Connie & Bellamy, Joe David. The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations with Famous Writers. Writer’s Digest Books. 3 October 2007.
  24. ^ Bellamy, Joe David. Literary Luxuries: American Writing at the End of the Millenium. University of Missouri Press. 1995. 81. Print.

External Links[edit]

Inness-Brown, Elizabeth. "Twelve Days in October." Madcap Review. 1 July 2014.

Inness-Brown, Elizabeth. "In the Soup." Seven Days. 6 July 2005.

"A Conversation with... Elizabeth Inness-Brown." Borzoi Reader. Knopf.

Inness-Brown, Elizabeth. Excerpt from "North Country Girls." North Country Books. June 2001.

Inness-Brown, Elizabeth. Excerpt from "Horse Dreams." The New Yorker. 2 September 1985.

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