Shared Writers Guild of America Award, 1983, for television special I Love Liberty Emmy Award nominations for I Love Liberty, 1982, and The Long Hot Summer (ABC miniseries), 1985 Literary Lion Award, New York Public Library, 1986 named Charlottesville Favorite Author. Member of literary panel, National Endowment for the Arts, 1978-81 Hemingway judge for first fiction, PEN International, 1984 blue ribbon panelist for Prime Time Emmy Awards, 1984, 1986. American Artists Inc., Charlottesville, VA, president, 1980. Founder, Redstockings Radical Feminist Group, National Gay Task Force, National Women's Political Caucus cofounder, Radical Lesbians member of board of directors of Sagaris, a feminist school. Sterling Publishing, New York, NY, photo editor, 1969-70 Federal City College, Washington, DC, lecturer in sociology, 1970-71 Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, research fellow, 1971-73 Goddard College, Plainfield, VT, visiting member of faculty in feminist studies, beginning 1973. Agent-The Wendy Weil Agency, 232 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016. Hobbies and other interests: Polo, fox hunting, horses, gardening. Education: Attended University of Florida Broward Junior College, A.A., 1965 New York University, B.A., 1968 New York School of Visual Arts, cinematography certificate, 1968 Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC, Ph.D., 1976. Fans of Brown's previous books ( Bingo Rest in Pieces ) may enjoy this story, but first-time readers are bound to be disappointed.Born November 28, 1944, in Hanover, PA adopted daughter of Ralph (a butcher) and Julia Ellen Brown. Arch dialogue, lack of plot and an overall inattentiveness to nuance are the distinguishing features here. But this gallery of character sketches cannot save the story from predictability and a deeply unconvincing resolution.

Brown delivers some nicely sketched southern characters: Mary Frazier's imperious mother, Libby, whose long-simmering anger has poisoned her daughter's life her sensitive brother, Carter, an alcoholic redneck whose lifelong self-destructiveness is partly a response to Mary Frazier's success her closeted lover, Ann, who is made uncomfortable by their claustrophobic secret life and her dazzlingly outrageous gay friend Billy Cicero. Under the impression that she is on her deathbed, wealthy North Carolina art dealer Mary Frazier Armstrong mails a series of brutally candid letters to her kith and kin, only to discover that she isn't dying after all. The risible title is arguably the best thing about Brown's latest comic novel, the tale of a woman who unwittingly comes out of the closet in midlife when she is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Venus Envy by Rita Mae Brown