In 2006, Florence King left retirement and resumed writing for National Review with a monthly column featuring her characteristic wry humor and insightful observations. Her most current book is The Florence King Reader.įlorence King retired to her home in Fredericksburg, Virginia (Wilcoch). Her next two works, Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye and Lump It or Leave It, are collections of essays (Wittman). The book ends with King in her twenties (Webb). Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady is King’s autobiography. King wrote several others until she wrote her most popular memoir to date, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady. Florence King has written for Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s and National Review, and she currently writes for National Review (Wiloch).įlorence King’s first book, Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, was published in 1975. Before King’s books were published, she wrote mainly in magazines, many times under a pseudonym. King’s book The Barbarian Princess was published under the pseudonym Laura Buchanan. Another job was the assistant editor of Uncensored Confessions from 1967 to 1968.ĭuring Florence King’s career, she has written under several pseudonyms including Cynthia, Veronica King, Emmett X. While at the Raleigh News and Observer, King received the North Carolina Press Woman Award for reporting. From 1964 to 1967, King was a feature writer for the Raleigh News and Observer.

Later in the decade, she was a file clerk at the National Association of Realtors. In the mid- 1950’s, she was a history teacher in Suitland, Maryland.

King had several occupations before she began writing as a career. After this tragic event, King began to put more interest in writing (Wittman). There she fell in love with a young woman who was later killed in a car accident. She then began graduate studies at the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, Mississippi (Wilcoch). After college she trained at the Woman Officer Candidate School in Quantico to become a marine but never completed the training (Wittman). She graduated from American University in 1957 with a Bachelor of Art degree (Wilcoch). She joined a sorority only to be thrown out because she professed she was a lesbian (Wittman). She slept with both sexes, including her male professor. Florence King describes herself as being a “conservative lesbian feminist” (Wittman).Ĭollege was a time of new experiences for King.

Her interests include Gay Nineties and turn-of-the-century popular songs (Wiloch). She is an active Episcopalian, member of Phi Alpha Theta, and her political preference is Royalist. King was raised in Tidewater, Virginia, by her grandmother. Florence King, a little known author and misanthrope, was born on January 5, 1936, in Washington D.C., to Herbert Frederick and Louise Ruding King.

Confessions of a southern lady