Pullinger, Kate

PERSONAL:

Born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada. Education: Attended McGill University.

CAREER:

Writer, editor, novelist, short-story writer, educator, lecturer, radio writer, and film writer. University of East Anglia, instructor in creative writing; DeMontford University, Leicester, instructor in creative writing and new media. Battersea Arts Centre, University of Reading, HMP Gartree, HMP Maidstone, and Maidstone, writer-in-residence; Jesus College, Cambridge University, Judith E. Wilson Visiting Writing Fellow, 1995-96; Women's Library, London Metropolitan University, Visiting Writing Fellow, 2001-03. TrAce Online Writing Centre, research fellow, 2002-03; Royal Literary Fund Virtual Fellow. Worked in a copper mine in the Yukon, Canada.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

Tiny Lies, Cape (New York, NY), 1988.

When the Monster Dies, Cape (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Julian Rothenstein) Drawings by Writers, Redstone (England), 1991.

Where Does Kissing End?, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor) The Gambling Box, Redstone (England), 1992.

(Editor) Borderlines: Stories of Exile and Home, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Jane Campion) The Piano (novel), Hyperion (New York, NY), 1994.

The Last Time I Saw Jane, Phoenix House (London, England), 1996.

My Life as a Girl in a Men's Prison, Phoenix House (London, England), 1997.

Weird Sister, Phoenix (London, England), 2000.

(Editor, with Carole Buchan) Harlot Red: Prize-Winning Stories by Women, Serpent's Tail (London, England), 2002.

(Editor) Shoo Fly Baby: The Asham Award Short Story Collection, Bloomsbury (New York, NY), 2004.

A Little Stranger, McArthur (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2004, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of inanimatealice, a multimedia graphic novel. Author, with Stefan Schemat and babel, of The Breathing Wall, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author, novelist, and editor Kate Pullinger is a frequent visiting writer at a number of universities in England. She serves as an instructor in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

Where Does Kissing End? is a "haunting short novel," wrote Lance Olsen in the Review of Contemporary Fiction, of an erotic affair between travel agency worker Mina Savage and the affable but somewhat bewildered and naïve Steven Smith. The two travel frequently due to the requirements of Mina's job, but one night in Spain, Mina disappears and does not return until morning. Both are disturbed by her behavior, and this act signals a distinct change in their relationship. Over the course of the novel, Mina begins to disappear more frequently, never remembering clearly where she's been or what she's done. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of her nighttime perambulations, Steven becomes progressively weaker and more and more anemic. Pullinger never calls Mina a vampire, but within the context of the novel, Pullinger applies vampirism as an "extended metaphor for the act of love which, for her, is continually in danger of draining independence and individuality from its participants while always almost becoming injury," observed Olsen. He concluded that Pullinger's novel is "impressive: a tight, clean, sometimes quirkily humorous and often emotionally intense fable for the end of this century."

Borderlines: Stories of Exile and Home, edited by Pullinger, contains eighteen short stories by writers from several countries. Leena Dhingra tells about a young Indian woman, living in Paris, who is painfully separated from her adopted home when her parents return to India. Hooman Majid tells a story involving Iranian refugees and gambling in Las Vegas. Janice Kylyk Keefer sees a Canadian woman leaving for England and explores the feelings she has as a second-generation migrant. Aamer Hussein relates the tragic story of Karima, living in England, who collects pictures of pop star Naeem because the singer reminds her of her dead son. The New York bar in Roberta Allen's story represents the melting pot of America, as everyone there is originally from somewhere else. "Singly, these stories are impressive. Collectively, they explore their subject with a depth that is usually the preserve of the novel," commented reviewer Mary Scott in the New Statesman & Society.

In A Little Stranger, protagonist Fran, a young mother, commits what many consider an unpardonable sin by abandoning her conscientious, caring husband, Nick, and Louis, her beautiful baby boy. "In this flawed but impressive novel, Kate Pullinger treats with thoughtful sympathy that profound taboo, the breaking of the mother-baby bond," commented Stevie Davies in the Guardian. As the novel progresses, the readers discover the roots of Fran's failed motherhood in her traumatic, dysfunctional family life, particularly represented by her tragic mother, Ireni, whom Davies described as the "damaged heart of the book." Nicola Harris, writing on the Bookmunch Web site, concluded: "Pullinger creates a brutally honest and undaunted story of motherhood and the nuclear versus extended family issues, at the end of which she manages to tie up all loose ends commendably."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 2002, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Harlot Red: Prize-Winning Stories by Women, p. 732.

Guardian (London, England), February 11, 2006, Stevie Davies, "To Vegas—and Back," review of A Little Stranger.

New Statesman & Society, July 16, 1993, Mary Scott, review of Borderlines: Stories of Exile and Home, p. 40.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, spring, 1993, Lance Olsen, review of Where Does Kissing End?, p. 273.

ONLINE

Bookmunch,http://www.bookmunch.co.uk/ (November 30, 2006), Nicola Harris, review of A Little Stranger.

Contemporary Writers Web site,http://www.contemporarywriters.com/ (November 30, 2006), biography of Kate Pullinger.