BUKOWSKI IN A SUNDRESS

This is a dazzling, laugh-out-loud memoir from an award-winning poet and novelist that reflects on writing, drinking, dating, and more.

In this utterly original memoir in essays, poet provocateur Kim Addonizio chronicles the joys and indignities in the life of a writer coasting through middle age. She vividly captures moments of inspiration at the writing desk (or bed) and adventures on the road—from sparsely attended readings at small Midwestern colleges to wine-fueled one-night stands at publishing conferences.
Addonizio's crackling wit and colorful prose bring unforgettable life to pieces like "How to Fall for a Younger Man" and "Necrophilia" (her term for an attraction to men who are dead inside). She turns a tender yet still comic eye to her family—especially her mother, a former tennis champion forced to struggle through Parkinson's at the end of her life, and the daughter she raised mostly alone, who at a young age chanced upon an article Addonizio had written for Penthouse.

Taking its impish title from a snarky remark by an NBCC judge some years ago—a barbed epithet that Addonizio found herself rather liking—BUKOWSKI IN A SUNDRESS is a captivating memoir, at once intimate and outrageous, that radiates all the wit and heartbreak and ever-sexy grittiness that her readers have come to love.

Kim Addonizio is an award-winning author of fiction, essays, and poetry. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her poetry collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award, and she has won Pushcart Prizes for both poetry and prose. She is also the author of two popular writing guides for poets, The Poet’s Companion and Ordinary Genius, and teaches and performs internationally. She divides her time between New York City and the Bay Area.