Rita Mae Brown (1944)

Rita Mae Brown is a U.S. writer and playwright. She is best known for her semiautobiographical, picaresque novel "Rubyfruit Jungle" (1973), an adventure story about growing up as a lesbian in America.
Born on November 28 in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Ms. Brown grew up in Florida and now lives outside Charlottesville, Virginia. She has a degree in Classics and English from New York University and a doctorate in Political Science from the Institute For Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Brown has published several books of poems, eleven novels, six mysteries with her cat, Sneaky Pie, and a writer's manual. She has been twice nominated for an Emmy, for her scripts "I Love Liberty" and "The Long Hot Summer". Other books: "The Hand that Cradles the Rock" (1971), "Songs to a Handsome Woman" (1973), "In Her Day" (1976), "Six of One" (1978), "A Plain Brown Rapper" (1976), "Sudden Death" (1983), "Southern Discomfort" (1982), "High Hearts" (1986), "Bingo" (1988), "Starting From Scratch" (1988), "Wish You Were Here" (1990), "Rest in Pieces" (1992), "Venus Envy" (1993), "Cat's Eyewitness", "Whisker of Evil", "The Tail of the Tip-Off".