Carolyn See

Carolyn See
Born	(1934-01-13)13 January 1934 Pasadena, California
Occupation	Novelist, Professor, Critic
Children	Lisa See, Clara Sturak

Carolyn See (born Carolyn Penelope Laws;^[1] January 13, 1934) is an adjunct professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles,^[2] and the author of nine books, including the memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, an advice book on writing, Making a Literary Life, and the novels There Will Never Be Another You and The Handyman.

See earned her associate degree from Los Angeles City College and her M.A. from California State University, Los Angeles.^[3] See dropped out of graduate school at UCLA to marry and move to Newfoundland, but eventually returned to earn her PhD. As a young woman and single mother, she earned money by testifying for the defense in pornography trials, leading to the successful book Blue Money: Pornography and the Pornographers.^[4] Having previously worked as a waitress and a teaching assistant, See's first teaching job was as a professor of English at Loyola Marymount University from 1975 until 1985.^[5] This was followed by a period as a visiting professor of English at her alma mater, UCLA, from 1986 to 1989, where she would later become an adjunct professor.^[6]

She is a frequent book reviewer for The Washington Post, having previously been a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times and Newsday,^[7] and she has been on the boards of the National Book Critics Circle and PENWest International. She has won both the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Getty Center fellowship. She lives in Pacific Palisades, California.

See has also written books under the pen name Monica Highland, a name she shared with two others, her daughter Lisa See and her longtime companion, John Espey, who died in 2000.

See is known for writing novels set in Los Angeles and has co-edited books that revolve around the city, including a book of short stories, LA Shorts, and the pictorial books Santa Monica Bay: Paradise by the Sea : A Pictorial History of Santa Monica, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Ocean Park, Pacific Palisades, Topanga & Malibu, and The California Pop-Up Book, which celebrates the city's unique architecture. See is also a feminist,^[8][9] and has said of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, "I was one of the persons whose lives that book changed."^[10]

Bibliography

Novels

• The Rest Is Done with Mirrors. New York, Little Brown, 1970.
• Mothers, Daughters. New York, Coward McCann Geoghegan, 1977.
• Rhine Maidens. New York, Coward McCann Geoghegan, 1980; Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin, 1981.
• Golden Days. New York, McGraw Hill, 1986; London, Century, 1987.
• Making History. New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
• The Handyman. New York, Random House, 1999.
• There Will Never Be Another You. New York, Random House, 2006.

Non-fiction

• Blue Money: Pornography and the Pornographers. New York, Rawson, 1973.
• Two Schools of Thought, with John Espey. Santa Barbara, California, Daniel, 1991.
• Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America. New York, Random House, 1995.
• Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers New York, Random House, 2002.

Novels as Monica Highland (with Lisa See and John Espey)

• Lotus Land. New York, McGraw Hill, 1983.
• 110 Shanghai Road. New York, McGraw Hill, 1986.
• Greetings from Southern California. New York, McGraw Hill, 1988.

Notes

External links

• Clara Sturak, The Last Man of Letters, UCLA Magazine, Spring 2001.
• Official Website
• "Extended biography," Jrank
• Conversation with Carolyn and Lisa See
• Review archive -- The Washington Post
• Article archive -- The Los Angeles Times