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Cris Mazza

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Cris Mazza (born 1956) is an American novelist, short story and non-fiction writer.

Biography

A native of Southern California, Mazza earned her BA and MA at San Diego State University and her MFA in writing at Brooklyn College. She has published 10 novels, 6 collections, 2 memoirs.[1] She is widely anthologized as an example of post-feminist, formalist, or contemporary experimental fiction. Her work often deals with second and third-wave feminist concerns as well as frank sexuality.

Along with Jeffrey DeShell, Mazza coined the term "chick lit" for the edited anthology Chick Lit Postfeminist Fiction (1995) and the follow-up anthology Chick Lit 2: No Chick Vics (1996).[2] While originally meant to be ironic, the term was co-opted to define a very different sort of work. In 2007, Gretchen Kalwinsky of Time Out Chicago called Mazza "an award-winning author who has waged a one-woman war against the chick-lit genre".[3]

During an interview with Rain Taxi, Mazza termed her 2013 memoir, Something Wrong With Her a ‘meta-memoir.’ The memoir explores sexual dysfunction. [4]

Mazza directs the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.[5] She won the PEN / Nelson Algren Award for her novel How to Leave a Country.[6]

In addition, Mazza received an &NOW award in 2009 for her story “Trickle-Down Timeline,” published in The &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing in 2009. She has also participated in the biennial &NOW festival.

Works

  • Animal Acts (FC2, 1988)
  • Is It Sexual Harassment Yet? (FC2, 1991)
  • How to Leave a Country: a novel (1992)
  • Revelation Countdown (FC2, 1993)
  • Dog People: a novel (1997)
  • Former Virgin (FC2, 1997)
  • Girl Beside Him (FC2, 2001)
  • Indigenous: Growing up Californian (City Lights, 2003)
  • Homeland (Red Hen Press, 2004)
  • Disability (FC2, 2005)
  • Many Ways to Get It, Many Ways to Say It (Chiasmus Press, 2005)
  • Waterbaby (Soft Skull Press, 2007)
  • Various Men Who Knew Us as Girls (Emergency Press, 2011)
  • Something Wrong With Her (memoir, 2013)

References

  1. ^ http://cris-mazza.com/
  2. ^ "What is chick-lit? - Electronic Book Review". www.electronicbookreview.com.
  3. ^ Kalwinsky, Gretchen (March 15–21, 2007). "Chicks and Balances" (PDF). Time Out Chicago. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
  4. ^ Farkas, Andrew. http://www.raintaxi.com/an-invisible-interview-with-cris-mazza/ "An Invisible Interview with Cris Mazza." Rain Taxi. Spring 2014.
  5. ^ "UIC Department of English Homepage". www.uic.edu.
  6. ^ "Soft Skull: Waterbaby by Cris Mazza". Archived from the original on November 9, 2007. Retrieved August 14, 2017.


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