Madelyn Arnold (born 1950) is an American fiction writer. In 1989, she won the inaugural Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Debut Fiction for her novel Bird-Eyes.

Contents

• Early life and education
• Writing career
• References

Early life and education

Madelyn Arnold was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1950. ^[1] Her childhood was marked by poverty and abuse, and she became responsible for taking care of the household at only 8 years old. ^[1] She became involved in political activism as a teenager, joining the NAACP in high school and writing to Socialist political candidates for information. ^[2]

Arnold attended college at Ball State University starting around age 16, studying biology and medical illustration. ^[1] It was there that she discovered her lesbian identity, and after being outed she was forced to leave the school. ^[1] She did eventually obtain a bachelor's in microbiology from Indiana University Bloomington in 1973, but she also became homeless and was institutionalized for a period before finding a new home in Seattle, Washington, in 1975. ^{[1] [3] [4]}

In Seattle, she worked in labs, hospitals, and clinics throughout the 1970s and '80s. ^{[1] [4]} She went on to obtain a master's in creative writing from the University of Washington. ^[1]

Writing career

Arnold's debut novel, Bird-Eyes, was published in 1988 to critical acclaim. ^{[3] [4]} Distributed by Seal Press, it won the inaugural Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Debut Fiction in 1989. ^{[1] [3] [4] [5] [6]} It fictionalized her real experiences with institutionalization as a teenager, in a period when queer women were frequently committed to mental institutions. ^{[1] [7] [8] [9]} It was later re-released by St. Martin's Press. ^[1]

In 1992, she released the short story collection On Ships at Sea, which included pieces she had been working on since 1976. ^{[3] [6]} The collection, published by St. Martin's Press, features predominantly lesbian characters in a wide variety of circumstances. ^[3] It was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction the following year. ^[10]

Then, in 2000, she published the novel A Year of Full Moons, which tells the story of a tomboy girl named Josephine Margaret Butler growing up in Kentucky during the turbulent political year of 1963. ^{[2] [6] [7]}

Arnold has been a longtime contributor to the Seattle Gay News , for which she wrote the column "Not Thinking Straight." ^{[1] [2]} She also wrote for the Zodiac News Service ^[1] and has taught fiction at the University of Washington and Seattle Central Community College. ^{[3] [7]}

References