Elizabeth George :: essays research papers fc

A Brief Biography of Elizabeth George (with a smidgeon of literary criticism-- and a short bibliography) Susan Elizabeth George was born on February 26, 1949, in Warren, Ohio, to Robert Edwin and Anne (Rivelle) George. She married Ira Toibin, an education administrator, on May 28, 1971; they divorced in November, 1995. She received an A.A. from Foothill Community College (Los Altos, CA) in 1969, a B.A. in 1970 from the University of California at Riverside, and an M.S. from California State University in 1979. She lists her political affiliation as Democratic and her religion as "recovering from Catholicism." Marjorie Rosen writes of her: "Growing up the only daughter of Robert George, an estimator for a conveyor company, and his wife, Anne, a nurse, George was influenced early by her parents' enthusiasm for literature. 'When my older brother, Rob, was 6, he was struck in the eye by an arrow and had his eyes bandaged. My parents spent hours reading to him, and I listened,' she Ms. George and Titch--photo credit Patty Smiley says. 'We weren't a family that had a lot of money. We turned to the world of imagination.' At 7, George knew she wanted to write. She began turning out short stories in elementary school after her mother gave her an old '30s typewriter, and she wrote her first unpublished novel by the time she graduated from Holy Cross High School in Mountain View." She taught English at several California high schools and has conducted creative writing courses at Coastline College (Costa Mesa, CA), Irvine Valley College (Irvine, CA), and the University of California, Irvine. She was selected Teacher of the Year by the Orange County Department of Education in 1981. Contemporary Authors quotes Ms. George, "I'm often asked why I write about England. The answer lies in my philosophy: 'Write about what interests you; write about what you love; write about what gives you joy.' Writing is such a lovely torture, it seems silly to engage in it if it's not directed towards something you love." Ms. George states that her love of things British dates from a 1966 Shakespeare study trip to England when she was 16. However, she told Valerie Takahama, "There's a part of writing these novels that I really can't explain. ... When the plane comes down in England, I feel as if I'm coming home." (She recently purchased a flat near Hyde Park in South Kensington, London.