Author Bio
• Birth—Janury 3, 1958
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., University of Tampa; M.A., University of
Kansas
• Awards—Southern Book Critics Circle Award; League of
American Pen Women - Frances Buck Award; Chataqua
South Literary Award
• Currently—lives in the state of Florida, USA
Connie May Fowler is an essayist, screenwriter, and novelist. She is the author of several novels, including How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly; The Problem with Murmur Lee; and a memoir, When Katie Wakes. In 1996, she published Before Women Had Wings, which became a paperback bestseller and was made into a successful Oprah Winfrey Presents movie.
She founded the Connie May Fowler Women With Wings Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to aiding women and children in need. (From the publisher.)
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Connie May Fowler is an American novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter, and poet. She earned a Bachelor of Arts (English Literature) from University of Tampa and a Masters of Arts (English Literature with an Emphasis in Creative Writing) from University of Kansas where she studied with the novelist Carolyn Doty
Her semi-autobiographical novel, Before Women had Wings, received the 1996 Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Francis Buck Award (League of American Pen Women). She adapted the novel for Oprah Winfrey and the subsequent Emmy-winning film starred Winfrey, Ellen Barkin, Julia Stiles, and Tina Majorino.
Remembering Blue received the Chautauqua South Literary Award. Three of her novels were Dublin International Literary Award nominees.
Her other novels include Sugar Cage; River of Hidden Dreams; The Problem with Murmur Lee (Redbook’s premier book club selection); and How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly. Her memoir, When Katie Wakes, explores her family’s generational cycle of domestic violence. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages.
Fowler’s essays, touch on a wide range of topics such as family history, Sumo wrestling, popular culture, music, sex, and food. They have been published in a variety of publications including the New York Times, The Times, Japan Times, International Herald Tribune, Oxford American, Best Life, and Forum.
Her work has been characterized as southern fiction with a post-modern sensibility. It often melds magical realism with the harsh realities of poverty. It generally focuses on working class people of various racial backgrounds.
She has been cited in sources such as Advancing Sisterhood?: Interracial Friendships in Contemporary Southern Fiction; and Race Mixing: Southern Fiction Since the Sixties. She is considered part of a "fourth generation" of American writers—black and white—that explodes old notions of race, segregation, and interpersonal racial relationships.
Extras
• In 2007, Fowler performed at New York City’s The Player's Club with actresses Kathleen Chalfont, Penny Fuller, and others in a performance based on The Other Woman, an anthology that includes Fowler’s essay “The Uterine Blues.” In 2003, Fowler performed in a charity benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues with Jane Fonda and Rosie Perez.
• Fowler has held numerous jobs including bartender, caterer, nurse, television producer, TV show host, antique dealer, and construction worker.
• From 1997-2003 she directed the Connie May Fowler Women Wings Foundation, an organization that served at risk women and children. From 2003–2007, she was the Irving Bacheller Professor of Creative Writing at Rollins College and directed their author series “Winter With the Writers.”
• Fowler, a life-long resident of Florida, has set all of her books, thus far, in that state. ("More" and "Extras" from Wikipedia.)