Carolyn See is the author of nine books, including the memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, an advice book on writing, Making a Literary Life, and the novels There Will Never Be Another You and The Handyman.

See dropped out of UCLA to marry and move to Newfoundland, but eventually returned to earn her Phd. As a young woman and single mother, she earned money by testifying for the defense in pornography trials, leading to the successful book Blue Money: Pornography and the Pornographers.

She is the Friday-morning reviewer for The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

, and she has been on the boards of the National Book Critics Circle

National Book Critics Circle

The National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....

 and PENWest International. She has won both the Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

 and the Getty Center

Getty Center

The Getty Center, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, is a campus for cultural institutions founded by oilman J. Paul Getty. The $1.3 billion center, which opened on December 16, 1997, is also well known for its architecture, gardens, and views overlooking Los Angeles...

 fellowship. She lives in Pacific Palisades, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

See has also written books under the pen name Monica Highland, a name she shared with two others, her daughter Lisa See

Lisa See

Lisa See is an American writer and novelist. Her Chinese-American family has had a great impact on her life and work. Her books include On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family and the novels Flower Net , The Interior , Dragon Bones , Snow Flower and the...

 and her longtime companion, John Espey

John Espey

John J. Espey was born in Shanghai, where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries. Espey returned to the United States to study at Occidental College in 1930, then went to Merton College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar in 1935...

, who died in 2000.

See is known for writing novels set in Los Angeles and has co-edited books that revolve around the city, including a book of short stories, LA Shorts, and the pictorial books Santa Monica Bay: Paradise by the Sea : A Pictorial History of Santa Monica, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Ocean Park, Pacific Palisades, Topanga & Malibu, and The California Pop-Up Book, which celebrates the city's unique architecture.

Novels

• The Rest Is Done with Mirrors. New York, Little Brown, 1970.
• Mothers, Daughters. New York, Coward McCann Geoghegan, 1977.
• Rhine Maidens. New York, Coward McCann Geoghegan, 1980; Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin, 1981.
• Golden Days. New York, McGraw Hill, 1986; London, Century, 1987.
• Making History. New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
• The Handyman. New York, Random House, 1999.
• There Will Never Be Another You. New York, Random House, 2006.

Non-fiction

• Blue Money: Pornography and the Pornographers. New York, Rawson, 1973.
• Two Schools of Thought, with John Espey. Santa Barbara, California, Daniel, 1991.
• Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America. New York, Random House, 1995.
• Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers New York, Random House, 2002.

Novels as Monica Highland (with Lisa See and John Espey)

• Lotus Land. New York, McGraw Hill, 1983.
• 110 Shanghai Road. New York, McGraw Hill, 1986.
• Greetings from Southern California. New York, McGraw Hill, 1988.

External links

• Clara Sturak, The Last Man of Letters, UCLA Magazine, Spring 2001.
• Official Website
• "Extended biography," Jrank
• Conversation with Carolyn and Lisa See
• Review archive -- The Washington Post
• Article archive -- The Los Angeles Times