Allison Green considers herself a Seattle native — mostly. Her father was raised in Spokane; her mother in Idaho and eastern Washington. They moved her and her younger brother to Seattle as she was starting seventh grade. Already she was keeping a journal, à la Harriet the Spy, and wanted to be a writer.
At The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, she took a novel workshop and wrote her first (terrible) novel. She then set out to see more of the country and lived in Washington, D.C., Boston, and Minneapolis, along the way earning an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Literature at Emerson College, where she wrote her second (not-quite-so terrible) novel.
Back in Seattle at thirty, Allison began her career at Highline (Community) College, where she has enjoyed teaching writing and literature for more than a quarter of a century. She finally wrote a novel she could be proud of, and St. Martin’s Press published Half-Moon Scar as part of its Stonewall Inn Editions imprint in 2000.
Allison started this blog in 2012 and discovered that she liked writing creative nonfiction as much as fiction. In 2015, Ooligan Press at Portland State University published her memoir, The Ghosts Who Travel with Me.
Her essays, stories, and poems have appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, ZYZZYVA, Calyx, Willow Springs, Raven Chronicles, and Yes! Magazine.
When not writing and teaching, Allison travels with her wife Arline García, drinks wine with her parents, hangs out with her grandchildren, binges on crime dramas, and takes long walks.
Read/view more:
Reviews and interviews related to The Ghosts Who Travel with Me
Blog post at Brevity, May 5, 2016
A video clip from a reading with Hannah Faith Notess at WordsWest Literary Series, November 18, 2015
An analysis of her essay “Seance” by Amy Butcher, editor of Defunct, September 18, 2013
Allison, so happy you found the Cow Pasture. I look forward to reading more from you. Welcome to the fence jumpers. @sheilamgood at Cow Pasture Chronicles
Hi,
I enjoyed reading the write-up in Brevity. I was wondering whether you could explain more about how you ” . . . read one of the short chapters in Trout Fishing in America and used it as a prompt for free writing”?
Thanks,
-Todd
I would sit at my desk, read the next chapter in Trout Fishing in America, then write for an hour whatever came to mind. I didn’t worry about making any sense; I just free associated. For example, when I read Brautigan’s chapter “Trout Fishing on the Bevel,” which is about fishing in a creek near two graveyards, I wrote about visiting my grandmother’s grave in Cambridge, Idaho.