Alice Denham (1927-2016 ) was always an author above all else. At various times she worked as a model, actress in films, copywriter, and adjunct professor of English at City University of New York. She was also a founding member of the National Organization for Women.
Living in New York in the fifties, Alice had friends and lovers among luminaries of the literary world, many of whom made appearances in her tell-all memoir, Sleeping With Bad Boys: A Juicy Tell-All of Literary New York in the Fifties and Sixties. She was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for the July 1956 issue — the only Playboy Playmate who ever had a short story published in the same issue of Playboy magazine. Her story was made into a festival prizewinning movie.
“Wry, gossipy, apparently possessed of an extraordinary memory and nobody’s fool …” —Stacy D’Erasmo, The New York Times, 11/19/2006
Alice also wrote for The New York Times, Village Voice, The Nation, Cosmopolitan, New York magazine, Playboy, The Washingtonian, Publishers Weekly, Confrontation, Best of the Missouri Review, Great Tales of City Dwellers, San Miguel Review, Solamente en San Miguel, etc. She taught creative writing at Yale, Smith, University of Toronto, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Alice’s books can be ordered from independent bookstores, Amazon, and other booksellers.
“True and touching love, a friendly neighborhood murderer, skin-crawling evil and extreme nuttiness in the same paragraph. An express enthraller, a one-sitting book if there ever was one.” —Jim Morris author of The Devil’s Secret Name, Bernal Díaz del Castillo Prize for his Vietnam memoir, War Story.
“A dynamic performance from a master storyteller. Prepare to be enchanted.” —Dermot McEvoy author of Our Lady of Greenwich Village and Terrible Angel.
“Alice Denham is America’s best-kept literary secret. With a style as spare as it is evocative, her work exemplifies the effortless rigor of true poetic genius. This long-awaited collection of short fiction confirms Denham’s status as a literary treasure of the first order.” —Michael J. Bowen, film historian, NYU
“Denham writes better about sex than anyone.” —Ms . magazine
“Tough and witty.” —Newsweek.
“A women’s liberation classic.” —Library Journal
“An utterly simmering memoir. Alice Denham knew everybody … and her portraits of each are so uncannily vivid that they sizzle on the page.” —David Markson, author of Wittgenstein’s Mistress
“The dame is dynamite and the dish is delicious.” —Susan Brownmiller, author of In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution
“When Miss Denham is being lyrical, she is capable of some really incredible language.” —Sunday New York Times Book Review
“Explosive … supercharged intensity. Miss Denham is a stylist.” —Fresno Bee
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