Dodie Bellamy

Dodie Bellamy (born 1951) is an American novelist, nonfiction author, journalist, educator and editor.

Bellamy was born Doris Jane Bellamy in 1951 in North Hammond, Indiana.

She grew up in Indiana and went on to study at Indiana University.

She graduated in 1973.

Bellamy was a co-editor along with, Kevin Killian, of the New Narrative anthology Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative, 1977–1997.

Bellamy moved to San Francisco in 1978.

She was a core member of The Feminist Writers’ Guild.

Bellamy is one of the originators in the New Narrative literary movement of the early and mid 1980s.

The movement attempts to use the tools of experimental fiction, like transgression, porn, gossip, and memoir, as well as French critical theory and incorporates them to narrative storytelling.

Bellamy published her first novel, The Letters of Mina Harker, in 1998 and follows minor character from Bram Stoker's Dracula and fictionalizes her as a woman living in 1980s San Francisco.

The book was re-published in 2021 by Semiotext(e).

Her book, Cunt-Ups (2001) won the 2002 Firecracker Alternative Book Award.

Her work is frequently associated with that of the New Narrative movement in San Francisco and fellow writers Robert Glück, Dennis Cooper, Kathy Acker, Kevin Killian, and Eileen Myles.

The writer's poetry collections include Cunt-Ups (2001), a feminist reworking of the cut-up technique practiced by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin, which received the Firecracker Award for Innovative Poetry, and Cunt Norton (2013).

Bellamy's memoir and essay collections include Pink Steam (2004), Academonia (2006), and When the Sick Rule the World (2015).

Barf Manifesto (2008), was influence by the writer's intimate and working relationship with Eileen Myles.

She published a memoir made up of blog entries, called The Buddhist, in 2011 which follows a similar format as Dennis Cooper's The Sluts.

Bellamy's book features a self-destructive affair with a third-rate self-help guru.

The TV Sutras, was a 2014 memoir that draws heavily from her own experience in the cult Eckankar.

A collection of new essays, Bellamy Is on Our Mind, was published in 2020 by Wattis ICA/Semiotext(e).

Bellamy has stated that she draws inspiration from Conceptual art and writing practices, including cut-ups and generated texts.

Bellamy has also directed the San Francisco literary non-profit and writing lab, Small Press Traffic.

She has taught creative writing at the San Francisco Art Institute, Mills College, University of California, Santa Cruz, University of San Francisco, Naropa University, Antioch University Los Angeles, San Francisco State University, California College of the Arts, and the California Institute of the Arts.