Bestselling Author │ Novelist │ Memoirist

"When I was a small girl, my parents fought every night. My sister and I would huddle together in our bedroom and I would beg her to read to me so that the sound of their voices might be drowned out. And so she would begin, reading to me from my children's books, night after night. Even then, before I had learned to read, I knew intimately the soul-saving power of literature."

—Connie May Fowler

Connie May Fowler is a bestselling storyteller who believes in the transformative power of language.  “Speak or write the words down, and the world becomes a clearer place,” she says. “Sometimes it even changes the world.” In her fiction she explores the effects of poverty, child abuse and domestic violence, the lush landscape of her native Florida, the conflict between traditional cultures and the modern world, and the universal human need for relationships.

Fowler draws upon her own family’s long history of struggle and tragedy to produce affecting and unvarnished stories. Born in North Carolina and raised in St. Augustine, Florida, she was the child of two alcoholics.  She was six when her father died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving Fowler and her sister with their physically and emotionally abusive mother.  Despite extreme poverty and abuse, Fowler was an excellent student and earned a scholarship to the University of Tampa.  In Fowler’s freshman year, her mother died of cirrhosis, a devastating loss despite their difficult relationship.  Writing became a kind of salvation, a way to make sense of her past hardships and turn them into something positive and productive. 

"The questions Fowler asks are the ones we all ask: What is the meaning of one human life? How do we cope with loss, sorrow, or with our deepest fears? Where she takes us is not to mourning but to celebration."

—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

Fowler's debut novel, Sugar Cage, was published in 1992 to critical acclaim. Amy Tan called Fowler “the genuine article,” adding: “She writes with tenderness of eye and an ear extraordinarily attuned to the cadence of language.”  Fowler is the author of four other critically praised and widely popular novels:  River of Hidden Dreams, Remembering Blue, Before Women Had Wings and The Problem with Murmur Lee.  

With River of Hidden Dreams, her second book, Fowler “established herself as a romantic dramatist of Florida’s fecund cultural blend and luxurious geography and wildlife” (Joanna Duckworth, Sunday Times). Her next book, Before Women Had Wings, received the 1996 Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Francis Buck Award from the League of American Pen Women.  Oprah Winfrey bought the movie rights to the book, and Fowler went on to write the screenplay for the subsequent Emmy Award-winning film. 

Fowler’s The Problem with Murmur Lee has been described by Sue Monk Kidd, bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees, as being “about all the things that matter: life, death, love, forgiveness, and the journey toward truth. Its deeply affecting story left me with an aching love for life.”

In addition to her fiction, Fowler is also the author of a bestselling memoir, When Katie Wakes, which details her descent into an abusive relationship with a charismatic older man and how she eventually gained the strength to leave. Kirkus Reviews called the book “a searing and finely crafted memoir of youth and adulthood stunted by abuse.”

Fowler’s commitment to eradicating violence against women led her to found the Women with Wings Foundation. From 1997-2003, she was director of the nonprofit organization, which supports women and children as they attempt to leave abusive situations.  In 2002 Fowler was honored with an Excellence Award by the Florida Coalition against Domestic Violence.

Connie May Fowler has been a professor of Creative Writing at Rollins College.  Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The London Times, The International Herald Tribune, and elsewhere. In her presentations, she speaks with passion and candor about the power of storytelling, the craft of writing, memoirs, domestic violence, and women’s issues.   Her seventh book, How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly was published in 2010 by Grand Central Publishing.

Books

• How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly (Grand Central, 2010)
• The Problem with Murmur Lee (Doubleday, 2005)
• When Katie Wakes: A Memoir (Doubleday, 2002)
• Remembering Blue (Doubleday, 2000)
• Before Women Had Wings (Putnam, 1996)
• River of Hidden Dreams (Putnam, 1994)
• Sugar Cage (Putnam, 1992)
  

Selected Awards

• 2002  Excellence Award from the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence
• 2000  Chautauqua South Literary Award for Remembering Blue
• 1996  Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Before Women Had Wings
• 1996  National League of American Pen Women Prize for Before Women Had Wings
  

Media

To read a recent article by Connie May Fowler in the New York Times, click here.

To hear an audio interview with Connie May Fowler, click here.

To learn more about Connie May Fowler and her work, go to www.conniemayfowler.com.