Inness-Brown, Elizabeth (Ann) 1954-

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INNESS-BROWN, Elizabeth (Ann) 1954-

PERSONAL: Born May 1, 1954, in Rochester, NY; daughter of Hugh Alwyn (a surgeon) and Doris Joan (Morath) Inness-Brown; stepmother Jacqueline Marie Goolden Inness-Brown; married Keith Calvert Monley (an editor), August 1, 1987. Education: St. Lawrence University, B.A. (English, with highest honors, and fine arts, cum laude), 1976; Columbia University, M.F.A., 1978. Politics: "Registered Democrat." Religion: Episcopal.

ADDRESSES: Home—VT. Office—St. Michael's College, Colchester, VT 05439. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, assistant professor of English, 1979-84, acting director, Center for Writers graduate program in creative writing, 1983; St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, visiting writer, 1984-85; University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, associate professor of English, 1985-86; Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, visiting writer, 1987; University of Hartford, Hartford, CT, visiting writer, 1987-88; St. Michael's College, Colchester, VT, English lecturer, 1988-90, assistant professor, 1990-94, associate professor of English, 1994—, director of the Writing Center, 1988—; Vermont College, adjunct and field faculty member, 1988-90.

AWARDS, HONORS: Youth Foundation fellowship, 1977; research grant, University of Southern Mississippi, 1980; listed as "Outstanding Writer" in Pushcart Prize, 1980, for "Inheritance," and 1981, for "Perfect Love"; award in short fiction, Associated Writing Programs, 1981, and St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction, St. Lawrence University, 1982, both for Satin Palms; Millay Council for the Arts fellow, 1982; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1982; Pushcart Prize, 1982, for "Release, Surrender"; Yaddo fellow, 1982; listed as "Outstanding Writer" in Pushcart Prize, 1989, for "The Housesitter," and 1992, for "The Sound."

WRITINGS:

Satin Palms (short stories), Fiction International (San Diego, CA), 1981.

Here (short stories), Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 1994.

Burning Marguerite (novel), Knopf (New York, NY), 2002.

Work represented in anthologies, including Pushcart Prize V: Best of the Small Presses, 1980-1981, edited by Bill Henderson, Pushcart Press (Wainscott, NY), 1980; New Writers for the Eighties: An Anthology, edited by Joe David Bellamy, Fiction International (Canton, NY), 1981; Pushcart Prize VI: Best of the Small Presses, 1981-1982, edited by Bill Henderson, Pushcart Press, 1981; Pushcart Prize XIV: Best of the Small Presses, 1989-90, edited by Bill Henderson, Pushcart Press, 1989; Pushcart Prize XVI: Best of the Small Presses, 1991-92, edited by Bill Henderson, Pushcart Press, 1991.

Contributor to periodicals, including Ascent, Boulevard, Chelsea, Cream City Review, Fiction International, Glimmer Train, New Orleans Review,New York Arts Journal, North American Review, New Yorker, St. Petersburg Times, and Sycamore Review. Editor of publications, including English News (University of Southern Mississippi), 1980-84, 1985-86, and Mississippi Review, 1983; contributing editor of Pushcart Prize, 1983—, and Boulevard, 1985—.

SIDELIGHTS: Elizabeth Inness-Brown is the author of the short story collections Satin Palms, which she once described as a "notebook of style," and Here, which she contrasted as "stories that I think are important and need to be heard," as well as the novel Burning Marguerite. Here is a book in which characters reside "in the encompassing and often incarcerating present," noted Douglas Bauer in the New York Times Book Review. Among the tales included in Here are "Traveler," in which a woman who is mistaken for a stranger's former lover decides to assume that role; "The Surgeon," wherein a doctor copes with his dying wife; and "The Chef's Bride," a tale about an arranged marriage between a chef and a teenager from Greece. Bauer praised "The Chef's Bride" as a work of "depth and richness," portraying "the inventive ambition, that Ms. Inness-Brown, unlike most of her characters, can clearly choose to tap."

Inness-Brown once commented: "I have very little memory of my childhood, or should I say very scattered memories. Childhood comes into my work, of course—how could it not?—but in a way I would say that I am blessedly free from the impulse to write autobiographically. The most autobiographical aspect of my work is my use of place, for which I seem to have a fairly decent memory." She would need such an accurate memory, for there have been a large number of places in her life. "I was born in Rochester, New York, but by third grade I had also lived in North Dakota, Louisiana, and Texas, and since then I have lived in California, Mississippi, Indiana, and Vermont. For this reason, I think, landscape—place, mental and physical—has always played an important part in my fiction. When I titled my second book Here, for me it meant everything that the world 'here' can mean: a place in the present moment, a gesture of giving, an internal state, a state of mind."

Inness-Brown ventured into the longer novel form for her 2002 title, Burning Marguerite, a "beautifully written, moving story of love, loss and renewal, harshness and horror," as Molly Connally described it in School Library Journal. At its core, the novel unravels the mystery of the suicide of Marguerite at age ninety-four. James Jack, her adoptive son, tries to understand the causes for this and uncovers a secret of stifled love and tragedy reaching back to the turn of the twentieth century when Marguerite, a young girl, fell in love with a Native American. Pregnant, she was forced to undergo an abortion that left her unable to have children. She was shipped off to New Orleans from her native northern New York, and her lover was subsequently killed by her abusive father. When she returned in middle age to the island in a New York lake where the story is set, she adopts young James, a local orphan, as a surrogate for the child she lost decades earlier. Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Ann Harleman praised the "beautifully plain prose" used to narrate Marguerite's story, but also complained of the author "erecting too many narrative structures" with which to tell her tale. Similarly, a critic for Kirkus Reviews commented that while Inness-Brown "is a fine writer, and fully succeeds in realizing her characters' lives, … her prose is sometimes emotionally desultory." Booklist's Bill Ott, however, was more positive in his assessment of this debut novel, calling it "compelling" and also noting its "crystalline prose" and "ability to evoke tenderness and love amid piercing silence." More praise came from Library Journal's David A. Berona, who felt that "strong metaphors and memorable characters make this a terrific read." And in a starred Publishers Weekly review, a contributor concluded that "this novel represents a solid building block in the foundation of a promising career."

"Most of my stories use a single point of view," Inness-Brown once noted, "and often the point of view is that of a person who may be or may seem to be isolated, either physically, socially, or psychologically. Usually the character is based on someone I've known, but the character quickly evolves into a unique, fully imagined creature. My primary subject, I think, is love, or the desire for love, or the lack of love, or the difficulties of love." And speaking with Robert Birnbaum on Identity Theory.com, Inness-Brown noted of her novel that "there was … a question [with critics] about whether I am trying to say something about love relationships in the twentieth century. I never try to say anything. I write characters and I make up stories."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, February 15, 2002, Bill Ott, review of Burning Marguerite, p. 992.

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2001, review of Burning Marguerite, p. 1634.

Library Journal, February 1, 2002, David A. Berona, review of Burning Marguerite, p. 131.

New York Times Book Review, April 3, 1994, Douglas Bauer, review of Here, p. 13; May 12, 2002, Ann Harleman, review of Burning Marguerite, p. 22.

Publishers Weekly, December 24, 2001, review of Burning Marguerite, p. 39.

School Library Journal, July, 2002, Molly Connally, review of Burning Marguerite, p. 143.