Lidia Yuknavitch (/ˈjuːknəvɪtʃ/YOOK-nə-vitch;[2] born June 18, 1963)[3][4] is an American writer, teacher and editor based in Oregon. She is the author of the memoir The Chronology of Water, and the novels The Small Backs of Children,Dora: A Headcase, and The Book of Joan. She is also known for her TED talk, "The Beauty of Being a Misfit", and its associated book, The Misfit's Manifesto.[5][6]
Early life
Yuknavitch was born Lidia Yukman in San Francisco, California.[7] She grew up in a home where her father verbally, physically, and sexually abused her and her sister, and her alcoholic mother did not intervene.[8] As a teen, she was noticed by a "caring and methodical coach," who helped her move toward her dream of becoming a competitive swimmer.[9] The family moved to Florida for additional training, and Yuknavitch began abusing alcohol.[9]
Yuknavitch relocated to Texas after high school, where she attended Austin Community College on a swimming scholarship. While attending college, she worked as a receptionist at the University of Texas at Austin.[10] Yuknavitch had hopes of qualifying for the United States Olympic swimming team,[11] but her own drug and alcohol abuse ended her competitive swimming career.[8]
After losing her scholarship, Yuknavitch moved to Eugene, Oregon, and enrolled in the University of Oregon.[11] There, she was one of the editors of Two Girls Review,[12] which later became 2 Gyrlz Performative Arts. She studied under Ken Kesey at the University of Oregon and earned her Ph.D. in English literature there.[13][14]
Career
In 1987–1988, Yuknavitch, then known as Lidia Yukman, collaborated with a novel-writing class at the University of Oregon taught by Ken Kesey that produced the book Caverns. Although the group of authors, collectively named "O. U. Levon", are often described as graduate students, Yuknavitch was not in graduate school at the time.[4]
Yuknavitch's 2011 memoir, The Chronology of Water, has developed a strong following. A Huffington Post book review noted that two years after being published, the book "keeps popping up on blogs and social media feeds."[20] Yuknavitch said she started writing the book as a kind of dare after talking to Chuck Palahniuk about memoir at the end of a meeting of their writers' group.[21] The title comes from a short story Yuknavitch wrote in a writing workshop with Diana Abu-Jaber.[21]
The photograph on the book jacket depicts a naked woman in the water. Yuknavitch and her publisher opted to wrap the book in a "belly band" in order to cover the woman's breast. Yuknavitch wrote about this decision in The Rumpus.[22]
Dora: A Headcase, is Yuknavitch's novel about "Dora", the subject of a famous case study by Sigmund Freud.[24] Yuknavitch wrote that she wanted to "give Dora back her voice and 'talk back' to Freud."[25] In 2014, the book was optioned for a movie by Katherine Brooks.[24]
The Small Backs of Children, published in 2015, was praised by Kirkus Reviews as a "brave and affecting novel."[26]
Random House published Yuknavitch's first short story collection, Verge, on February 4, 2020.[27]
Yuknavitch has had romantic relationships with both men and women, including Kathy Acker. She has been married three times.[29] She lives in Eugene, Oregon. She and her ex-husband, the filmmaker Andy Mingo, have one son together, Miles.[14][16]
12Koven, Suzanne (2013). "Writing From the Body: Memoirs By Women". Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. 15 (1): 178–181. doi:10.1353/fge.2013.0487. S2CID109961495.
12Carpenter, Kasey (June 6, 2011). "There's a Naked Woman Inside". The Cult (The Official Fan Site of Chuck Palahniuk). Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
