Nancy Mairs
December 3, 2016 (aged 73)
writer
Argument against discrimination based on disability
George Mairs
Life[edit]
Mairs was born on July 23, 1943, in Long Beach, California.[1]
She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when she was 28, and began using a wheelchair soon after.[1] She wrote several essays on her experiences as a self-described "cripple", including "On Being a Cripple," "Sex and the Gimpy Girl," and the memoir Waist High in the World.[1]
In her 30s, she converted to Roman Catholicism, a faith that she frequently wrote about in her essays.[1]
She was married to George Mairs.[2]
Nancy Mairs died in Tucson, Arizona on December 3, 2016.[3]
Career[edit]
She earned an AB from Wheaton College in 1964.[1]
Prior to attending graduate school, Mairs worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge and the International Tax Program at Harvard Law School.[1]
She went on to earn an MFA in writing in 1975 and a Ph.D. in 1983; both graduate degrees were from the University of Arizona.[4]
Her PhD dissertation became the book that was eventually published as the essay collection Plaintext (1986).[5]
Mairs published poetry and essays regularly, and was particularly well known for writing about her experiences as a woman with a physical disability.[6]
She also wrote about her experiences with managing depression.[7]
In 2011, Palgrave published On the Literary Nonfiction of Nancy Mairs: A Critical Anthology, an edited collection of her essays with commentaries on and essays about her work.[6]
Works[edit]
In All the Rooms of the Yellow House (1984)
Plaintext:Deciphering a Woman’s Life (1986)
Remembering the Bonehouse (1989)
Carnal Acts (1990)
Ordinary Time (1993)
Voice Lessons (1994)
Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled (1996)
Voice Lessons: On Becoming a (Woman) Writer (1997)
A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories (2001)
Essays Out Loud: On Having Adventures & A Necessary End (CD) (2004)
A Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith (2007)