Plaintext has won critical acclaim and a wide audience for author Nancy Mairs’s unapologetic views on agoraphobia, multiple sclerosis, and the challenges of being a woman in a patriarchal world. The provocative collection includes the widely anthologized essays “On Being a Cripple” and “On Not Liking Sex.”
Nancy Mairs was born in Long Beach, California, and grew up in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. She received an AB in English literature from Wheaton College (Massachusetts). From 1966 to 1972 she worked as a technical editor at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the MIT Press, and the Harvard Law School. In 1972 she moved to Tucson, Arizona, and taught high school and college composition courses while studying for an MFA in creative writing (poetry) and a PhD in English literature, which she was awarded in 1984. In the same year, her book of poems In All the Rooms of the Yellow House received first prize for poetry in the Western States Book Awards competition.
SELF
On Having Adventures
On Being a Cripple
On Touching by Accident
On Being a Scientific Booby
LIFE
Woman With Full Red Lips
Ron Her Son
A Letter to Matthew
On Being Raised by a Daughter
WRITING
On Not Liking Sex
On Keeping Women In/Out
On Loving Men
On Living Behind Bars
