Dodie Bellamy

Dodie Bellamy is a novelist, nonfiction author, journalist and editor, known for her non-traditional use of sexuality, politics, and narrative experimentation. Her work is frequently associated with that of Dennis Cooper, Kathy Acker, and Eileen Myles. She is one of the originators in the New Narrative literary movement, which attempts to use the tools of experimental fiction and critical theory and apply them to narrative storytelling.

Background

A native of Hammond, Indiana and educated at Indiana University, Bellamy has taught creative writing at many educational institutions, including the San Francisco Art Institute, Mills College, UC Santa Cruz, University of San Francisco, and Cal Arts. She served for five years as director of the writing laboratory in San Francisco - Small Press Traffic, and has led a private prose workshop since the early 90s. Bellamy also lectures in the Creative Writing Department of San Francisco State University and is an associate faculty member in the MFA program at Antioch Los Angeles.

Common Themes

As a writer, Bellamy explores the themes of bodily or spiritual invasion and possession. Some of the footprints of her prose are formal interruptions, intertextual voices, temporal shifts and syntactical twists. Consistently striving for innovation and the forthright depiction of emotion, Bellamy introduces sex, often using tropes from horror films and other pop culture debris. Her work frequently confronts topics like feminism, cultural politics, queer culture, AIDS, and body issues.

Works

Real: The Letters of Mina Harker and Sam D'Allesandro ( Talisman House, 1995 ), written together with Sam D'Allesandro, which addresses the issue of AIDS, sexual transgression, and the desire for the forbidden Feminine Hijinx (Hanuman, 1990) Cunt Ups (Tender Buttons, 2002), a radical feminist approach to the "cut up" introduced by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin Fat Chance (Nomados, 2004) Pink Steam, a cross-genre collection of fiction, memoirs, and essays (Suspect Thoughts, 2004).

Cunt-Ups and Fat Chance are excerpts from her novel in progress - The Fourth Form.

Publishing

In 2004 the University of Wisconsin Press reissued her magnum opus, the novel The Letters of Mina Harker, in which she resurrects Mina Harker, the heroine of Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the fall of 2006, Krupskaya Books published Academonia, a collection of essays and fictions. Bellamy's works have also appeared in several anthologies, such as Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women.

Publishing in journalism and creative nonfiction, her writing also appeared in The Village Voice, The San Francisco Chronicle, Book Forum, Out/Look, The San Diego Reader, ZDNet Developer, Nest and on numerous websites. In 1998, Bellamy won the San Francisco Bay Guardian "Goldie" Award for Literature. With the help of her partner, Kevin Killian, she has edited more than 130 issues of the literary/art zine Mirage #4/Period(ical). In February 2006, White Columns gallery in New York City mounted an exhibition of Bellamy and Killian's work, including a complete run of Mirage/Period(ical).

References to Bellamy

Pink Steam was referenced by Sonic Youth in their 2006 album Rather Ripped.

External links

• Academonia at Krupskaya Books