Sonya Dorman (June 4, 1924 – February 14, 2005), born Sonya Gloria Hess, was the working name of Sonya Dorman Hess. She was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1924 and died in

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Cha ...

on February 14, 2005, at the age of 80. Dorman published around two dozen science fiction short stories between 1961 and 1980, and she was associated with science fictions " New Wave" of experimental writing. According to Diane Zigo and Michael Moore, Dorman was part of a group of women writers (including writers such as C.J. Cherryh,

Carol Emshwiller Carol Emshwiller (April 12, 1921 – February 2, 2019) was an American writer of avant garde short stories and science fiction who has won prizes ranging from the Nebula Award to the Philip K. Dick Award. Ursula K. Le Guin has called her "a ma ...

Tanith Lee Tanith Lee (19 September 1947 – 24 May 2015) was a British science fiction and fantasy writer. She wrote more than 90 novels and 300 short stories, and was the winner of multiple World Fantasy Society Derleth Awards, the World Fantasy Lifetime ...

Judith Merril Judith Josephine Grossman (January 21, 1923 – September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril around 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist, and one of the first women to be wid ...

Joanna Russ Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as ''How to Suppress Women's Writing'', as w ...

, and Kate Wilhem) who "emerged as groundbreaking and prolific writers" in the 1960 and 1970s writing feminist science fiction. Dorman appeared in

Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. Robert Bloch, the author of '' Psycho'' ...

's 1967

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

'' Dangerous Visions'', with the story "Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird," a story set in a post-apocalyptic future where cannibalism is accepted. In 1978, three of Dorman's short stories were gathered together in young adult novel, ''Planet Patrol.'' Dorman's best-known work of science fiction is the story "

When I Was Miss Dow "When I Was Miss Dow" is a short story by the American writer Sonya Dorman. It was first published in ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' in June 1966.. Retrieved 21 January 2019. In the story, a being on a planet colonized by people from Earth is reformed ...

", which was published in

Galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

in 1966 and has been reprinted numerous times and received a

James Tiptree, Jr. Alice Bradley Sheldon (born Alice Hastings Bradley; August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author better known as James Tiptree, Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. It was not publicly known ...

retrospective award nomination. According to Susan Wood and Chris Morgan, Dorman's "When I Was Miss Dow," can be see as part of a tradition of "woman-as-alien" that "has a long tradition in science fiction." Further, they argue that Dorman uses "this convention... to examine the restraints, damages, and dangers that the patterns of 'female' and 'male' have imposed on human beings." Dorman also published in non Science Fiction magazines including ''

Redbook ''Redbook'' is an American women's magazine that is published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the " Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines. It ceased print publication as of January 2019 and now operates an article-comprise ...

'' and ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...

.'' In 1966, for example, her short story "Voyage to the Stars" was published in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. In addition to her Science Fiction writing, Dorman is perhaps best known outside of the world of

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

as a

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

publishing multiple volumes of poetry including her collected ''Poems'' published in 1970 as well as ''Palace of Earth'' (1984), ''Constellations of the Inner Eye'' (1991), and C''arrying What You Love'' (1996). One of her poems, ''Corruption of Metals'', received honors within science fiction circles by winning the

Rhysling Award __NOTOC__ The Rhysling Awards are an annual award given for the best science fiction, fantasy, or horror poem of the year. Unlike most literary awards, which are named for the creator of the award, the subject of the award, or a noted member of t ...

of the

Science Fiction Poetry Association The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) is a society based in the United States with the aim of fostering an international community of writers and readers interested in poetry pertaining to the genres of science fiction, fantasy, ...

in 1978.

Pamela Sargent Pamela Sargent (born March 20, 1948) is an American feminist, science fiction author, and editor. She has an MA in classical philosophy and has won a Nebula Award. Sargent wrote a trilogy concerning the terraforming of Venus that is someti ...

, a science fiction editor, drew connections between

feminist poetry Feminist poetry is inspired by, promotes, or elaborates on feminist principles and ideas. It might be written with the conscious aim of expressing feminist principles, although sometimes it is identified as feminist by critics in a later era. Some w ...

and science fiction including poems by Dorman in her anthology,

Women of Wonder ''Women of Wonder: Science-fiction Stories by Women about Women'' is an anthology of twelve short stories and a poem edited by Pamela Sargent, published in 1975. The collection reprints work by female science fiction authors originally published f ...

(1975).

Personal life

Dorman was raised by foster parents in West Newbury, Massachusetts. After one year of college she worked in variety of jobs including working as a stable hand, maid, fish canner, riding instructor, and tuna boat cook. She had a brief first marriage (1945–46) before marrying Jack Dorman, and engineer, in 1950. The couple had a daughter in 1959, and they lived in New York and Connecticut in the 1970s. After her divorce in 1986, Dorman moved to Taos, New Mexico, where she began publishing under her maiden name and where she lived until her death.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dorman, Sonya 1924 births 2005 deaths Writers from Taos, New Mexico Writers from New York City 20th-century American novelists American science fiction writers American women short story writers American women novelists American women poets Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem winners Women science fiction and fantasy writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American poets 20th-century American short story writers Novelists from New York (state) 21st-century American women