ALISON LURIE is the author of nine novels, including “Foreign Affairs” (Pulitzer Price, 1985), and “The Truth About Lorin Jones” (Prix Femina Etranger, 1989), and a collection of short stories, “Women and Ghosts.” Her most recent novel, “The Last Resort” (1998) is set in Key West and ends with a conference that has something in common with the Literary Seminar. Ms. Lurie has also published “The Language of Clothes,” a study of the psychology of fashion, “Don’t Tell the Grownups, a collection of essays on children’s literature, and three books of traditional folktales for children.

Three of Ms. Lurie’s novels--”Foreign Affairs,” “The War Between the Tates,” and “Imaginary Friends”--have been adapted for television. She has received Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation grants and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award in Fiction.

Alison Lurie is the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of American Studies at Cornell University, where she teaches courses in literature, folklore, and writing. She has spent part of every winter in Key West since 1979. Her hobbies include gardening, astrology, needlepoint and the collection of contemporary folklore and ghost stories. She is married to the writer Edward Hower and has three grown sons and three growing grandchildren.

• LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP (1962)
  
• THE NOWHERE CITY (1965)
  
• IMAGINARY FRIENDS (1967)
  
• REAL PEOPLE (1969)
  
• THE WAR BETWEEN THE TATES (1974)
  
• V. R. LANG: POEMS AND PLAYS With a memoir by Alison Lurie (1975)
  
• ONLY CHILDREN (1979)
  
• CLEVER GRETCHEN AND OTHER FORGOTTEN FOLKTALES (juvenile) (1980)
  
• THE HEAVENLY ZOO (juvenile) (1980)
  
• THE LANGUAGE OF CLOTHES (non-fiction) 1981
  
• FABULOUS BEASTS (juvenile) (1981)
  
• FOREIGN AFFAIRS (1984) (Pulitzer Prize, 1985)
  
• THE TRUTH ABOUT LORIN JONES (1988) (Prix Femina Etranger, 1989)
  
• DON’T TELL THE GROWNUPS: SUBVERSIVE CHILDREN’S LITERATURE (1990)
  
• WOMEN AND GHOSTS (1994)
  
• THE LAST RESORT (1998)
  
  Editor of THE OXFORD BOOK OF MODERN FAIRY TALES
  Co-Editor of THE GARLAND LIBRARY OF CHILDREN’S CLASSICS

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