Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Ingrid Hill is the author of the short story collection Dixie Church Interstate Blues and the novel, Ursula, Under. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa and has twice received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has twelve children, including two sets of twins. She lives in Iowa City.
This bio was last updated on 11/27/2017. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
Among its other qualities,
Ursula, Under is a tour de force of historical detail. How did you
amass the knowledge that enabled you to write so richly of Chinese, Finnish,
and immigrant experiences?
When I was left a single mom with eleven children, I had to get a career
to support them, so I went back to graduate school to be able to teach
literature and writing at the college level. I needed two foreign languages
as part of this program, and I was feeling a bit heady with both the
impossibility and the necessity of this, so I asked for Swedish first. My
father was Swedish-American, a sea captain, and I'd always wanted to study
Swedish but never had a chance. As part of my program, I got to study in
Sweden, and the Swedish history and culture classes really intrigued me,
especially the era of Gustavus Adolphus.
I met my second husband in a writers' group here and we became friends.
He went to China for a year to teach English teachers at a university there,
and he invited me to visit. I was hooked. I had no explanation for my
immediate and unexpected love for China, but in retrospect I think it was
the enforced simplicity...
Susan Barker is the author of Sayonara Bar and The Orientalist and the Ghost, both longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. She grew up in East London with a Chinese-Malyasian mother and a British father, and studied creative ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Ursula, Under
Try:
The Incarnations
by Susan Barker
Nomi Eve is the author of Henna House and The Family Orchard, which was a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection and was nominated for a National Jewish Book Award.
She has an MFA in fiction writing from Brown University and ...
(more)
If you enjoyed:
Ursula, Under
Try:
The Family Orchard
by Nomi Eve
We recommend 6 similar authors
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
