Topper

Carolyn See was born Carolyn Penelope Laws in Pasadena, California on January 13, 1934. She received a bachelor's degree from California State University Los Angeles in 1957 and a doctorate in English from UCLA in 1962. She taught creative writing classes at Loyola Marymount University and at UCLA. Before she retired in 2004, she created a $100,000 endowment at UCLA, for the study of Southern California literature. She was also a regular book critic at the L.A. Times and the Washington Post

She wrote more than a dozen books including the novels Rhine Maidens, Golden Days, and There Will Never Be Another You. With John Espey and Lisa See, she co-wrote two novels under the pseudonym Monica Highland: Lotus Land and 110 Shanghai Road. They also wrote a nonfiction book about vintage postcards entitled Greetings from Southern California. In 1995, See wrote a memoir entitled Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America. She also wrote a guidebook for beginning writers entitled Making a Literary Life. She received the L.A. Times Book Prize's Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement in 1993. She died of cancer on July 13, 2016 at the age of 82.

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