Nancy Mairs (1943- )
Waist-High in the World
Background
- Born in 1943 in Long Beach, California, the daughter of a naval officer and a tax
collector..
- Married George Mairs, a teacher; has three children.
- Attended Wheaton College (A.B., 1964) and University of Arizona (M.F.A., 1975, Ph.D.,
1984).
- Received theWestern States Arts Foundation book award in 1984 for a collection of
poetry, In All the Rooms of the Yellow House, but known primarily as a feminist
essayist.
- Since 1992, has been forced by progressive multiple sclerosis to use a wheelchair.
Major Writings
Instead it is Winter (poems) (1977)
In All the Rooms of the Yellow House (1984)
Plaintext (essays) (1986)
Remembering the Bone-House: An Erotics of Place and Space (essays) (1989)
Carnal Acts (essays and fiction) (1990)
Ordinary Time: Cycles in Marriage, Faith, and Renewal (essays) (1994)
Voice Lessons: On Becoming A (Woman) Writer (1994)
Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled (1996)
Critical Sources and Reviews
- Biographical and critical information in the following Gale publication: Contemporary
Authors, Volume 136, though the information is currently updated only to
1992. Gale Literary Database (Contemporary Authors Online) can be accessed
online through a subscribing library at www.galenet.com.
- Other print sources for biographical and critical information:
American Women
Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the
Present,
Volume 5. Edited by Carol Hurd Green and Mary Grimley Mason. New York,
1994.
- Three book
reviews (Remembering the Bone House, Carnal Acts, and Waist-high in the World)
in MSWorld.
