Dorothy Allison is an American lesbian writer, speaker, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She was raised in Greenville, South Carolina. She is legally blind in her right eye.

Her mother soon married and when Dorothy was 5, her step-father started sexually abusing her. This continued until she managed to tell a relative. Dorothy's mother quickly found out and stopped the abuse but managed to keep the family together.

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• I do not write about nice people. I am not nice people.
  • Skin: Talking About Sex, Class And Literature