16 Feb 2000

Rare Dundee triple appearance to launch Brilliant Careers

Photo opportunity 6pm tonight (Wed 16 Feb) at James Thin Bookseller, High St Dundee. English lecturer at the University of Dundee, Kasia Boddy and her two co-editors will make a rare triple appearance in Dundee tonight (Wed 16 Feb) to launch their new book - Brilliant Careers: The Virago Book of Twentieth Century Fiction.

The volume, which brings together a definitive collection of short pieces by Virago authors one from every year of the last century, has already sent ripples through the publishing world and been the subject of major reviews.

Kasia Boddy left London in December 1999 to join the University of Dundee's English Department which was recently rated the best in the UK. Brought up in Glasgow, Kasia graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1988 with an MA in English and philosophy then completed a PhD at Cambridge in 1992. Since then she has lectured at York University and at University College London. A specialist in contemporary Scottish and American writing, she has co-edited a number of volumes including Original Prints Volume 11 : New Writing from Scottish Women . She is currently writing a book about the boxer in twentieth century American culture.

Virago release follows

Brilliant Careers

The Virago Book of Twentieth Century Fiction edited by Ali Smith, Kasia Boddy, and Sarah Wood. Published in hardback, 24 February 2000, Price: £18.99

From Stevie Smith to Grace Paley, from Katherine Mansfield to Michele Roberts, from Mae West to Marilyn French...ground breaking literature from every year of the twentieth century.

Brilliant Careers is a definitive collection of short pieces by Virago authors, one from every year of the last century. Opening on a vanished Victorian world, it traces the confused march of progress and conflict that has brought us to the beginning of a new Millennium. A chronological look at the forces that have shaped the twentieth century and their impact on the lives of women who experienced them, this is also a vibrant literary history that allows the reader to jump back and forth in time, making new connections and weaving their own stories.

This rich collection includes much-loved writers such as Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood alongside the less well-known who are waiting to be discovered. Spanning the English speaking world and including biographical sketches and some beautifully evocative photographs, this is an immaculately edited anthology that stimulates curiosity as well as being endlessly entertaining.

Ali Smith is the author of the novel Like and the short-story collection Free Love both of which are published by Virago, as well as Other Stories and Other Stories. She lives in Cambridge.

Kasia Boddy is a Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Dundee. She is currently writing a book about the boxer in twentieth-century American culture.

Sarah Wood is a film-maker. Her most recent project is Living Space, a study of the architect Frank Gehry's work for the Maggie Jencks Trust.

The editors are available for interview. For further information, contact Helen Coyle, Virago publicity on 0171 911 8056/fax:0171 911 8100, or by email on Helen. Coyel@littlebrown. co. uk