Davis-Gardner, Angela 1942- (Angela Davis Gardner)

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Davis-Gardner, Angela 1942- (Angela Davis Gardner)

PERSONAL:

Born April 21, 1942, in Charlotte, NC; daughter of Burke (a writer) and Evangeline (a writer) Davis; married Richard Kollath, June 7, 1967 (divorced, 1971); married Charles Gardner (a geologist), April 12, 1975; children: Charles, Jr. (stepson), Heath. Education: Duke University, B.A., 1963; University of North Carolina at Greensboro, M.F.A., 1965.

ADDRESSES:

Home— Raleigh, NC. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and educator. Tsuda College, Tokyo, Japan, instructor in English, 1965-66; Raleigh News and Observer, Raleigh, NC, reporter, 1966-67 and 1972-74; University of North Carolina at Greensboro, instructor in English, 1967; Guilford College, Greensboro, instructor in English, 1967; Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, teaching fellow in English, 1968-69; North Carolina State University, Raleigh, managing editor of Community College Review, 1974-76, teacher of English as a second language, 1978-81; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, beginning as visiting lecturer in English, 1982—.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellowship for creative writing from North Carolina Arts Council, 1981-82; Sir Walter Raleigh Award for the best novel by a North Carolinian, for Forms of Shelter; North Carolina Artists fellowship, 2003; awards for short stories from STORY magazine and Writer's Digest.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Felice, Random House (New York, NY), 1982.

Forms of Shelter, Ticknor & Fields (New York, NY), 1991.

Plum Wine, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 2006.

Stories and personal essays have appeared in numerous journals, including Shenandoah, Cream City Review, Greensboro Review, and Great River Review, and in the anthology Between Friends: Writing Women Celebrate Friendship, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1994.

SIDELIGHTS:

Angela Davis-Gardner's novel Felice is the story of an adolescent girl sent to a convent school in Nova Scotia after her parents are drowned in a boating accident. "The conflicting feelings of adolescence, the tension between a newly developing body and strong emotions, are reflected in the strains of Catholicism, both spiritual and sensuous, an attractive, romantic discipline to a sensitive girl like Felice," described Linda Barrett Osborne in her Washington Post Book World review. Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Carolyn See called the novel "beautiful, sophisticated, sensual, and rare." "Angela Davis-Gardner gives her readers the rewards of both the realistic novel and the romance," praised Mary Gordon in the New York Times Book Review, explaining that "her tale is told with the intensity of an imaginative adolescent, but the world in which the tale abides is created with a precise attention to detail."

In her novel Plum Wine, Davis explores postwar Japan in a story of secrets and love. Barbara Jefferson teaches English at a Japanese College. When she inherits a case of plum wine from her Japanese foster mother, Michi, she discovers that the paper covering them contains calligraphy. Barbara sets out to find a translator, Okada Seiji, who reveals the story of Michi's life and wins the love of Barbara. In the process, Barbara learns of the terrible aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bomb as revealed by the lives of both Michi and Okada. "The striking beauty and rich traditions of Japan star," wrote Julia Ramey on the Bookslut Web site, adding that the author "transports readers to the faraway island …. and offers a compelling look at a nation still reeling from World War II." Ramey went on to note: "Davis-Gardner is an excellent tour guide: her vivid descriptions and lucid explanations of all things Japanese are nearly enough to make you impulsively purchase a plane ticket." A Kirkus Reviews contributor referred to Plum Wine as an "elegant, moving novel." Another reviewer writing in Publishers Weekly commented that the author "quietly wows" and that the book "features a wonderfully inventive plot and a protagonist as self-possessed as she is sensitive."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2006, Donna Seaman, review of Plum Wine, p. 26.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2006, review of Plum Wine, p. 146.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 18, 1982, Carolyn See, review of Felice.

New York Times Book Review, June 6, 1982, Mary Gordon, review of Felice.

Publishers Weekly, March 27, 2006, "Nancy Olson, Owner, Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, NC," brief discussion of Plum Wine, p. 10, and review of Plum Wine, p. 59.

Washington Post Book World, June 13, 1982, Linda Barrett Osborne, review of Felice.