Dorothy Allison is an American writer, activist, and academic. Born into a working poor family in Greenville County, South Carolina, in 1949, Allison is proud of her roots. She has always identified with working class and working poor communities, and she has sought to broaden representations of poor and impoverished women in her books. Much of her writing explores the intersection between class, gender, and sexuality, and her interest in the feminist movement is apparent in both her fiction and non-fiction titles.

A gifted student, Allison was the first in her family to attend university. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Florida Presbyterian College on a National Merit Scholarship and a master’s degree from the New School for Social Research in 1981. It was in college that Allison was first introduced both to Marxist theory and the feminist movement, and she credits both of those experiences as a catalyst for increased self-understanding and the desire to write. Although proud of the many unskilled and odd jobs that she worked on the path to becoming a writer, she also held positions that made use of her education and training. For a time. She was the editor of feminist magazine Amazing Grace and also a founding manager of Herstore Feminist Bookstore in Tallahassee.