Dorothy Allison describes herself as a feminist, a working class story teller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian.

Other people tend to tack on “National Book Award finalist.”

Just as an actor who is nominated for an Academy Award is forever known as an “Oscar-nominated actor,” so too does the 1992 book contest stick to Allison’s name.

She was nominated for “Bastard Out of Carolina,” and although she missed top honors, the book won several other prizes, was a best seller and became an award-winning movie, directed by Anjelica Houston and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Allison will present a Field’s End lecture, “Scaring the Horses: Writing Those Big Mean Stories,” Jan. 28 at the Bainbridge High School Auditorium.

She has said of her work, “I believe that story-telling can be a strategy to help you make sense of your life. It’s what I’ve done.”

She doesn’t hide the fact that “Bastard Out of Carolina” is based on her own tough upbringing. She was born in Greenville, South Carolina to an unwed 15-year-old waitress, and sexually abused by her stepfather for six years, starting when she was 5 years old, much like the lead character in her book.

Allison went on to be the first member of her family to graduate from high school, and went on to graduate from college as well.

Certainly she could be admired for what she has overcome, but her writing stands on its own.

Her second novel, “Cavedweller,” was a New York Times bestseller, won the 1998 Lambda Literary Award and was a finalist for the Lillian Smith Prize. It was also made into a play and presented off Broadway in 2003, and as a TV movie in 2004.

A chapbook of her performance work in the form of a memoir, “Two or Three Things I Know for Sure,” was selected as a notable book of the year by the New York Times Book Review and made into a documentary.

She has written several other books of short stories and poetry, including “The Women Who Hate Me,” first published in 1983, then expanded and republished in 1990.

This spring she will be writer in residence at Columbia College in Chicago, and a new novel, “She Who,” is forthcoming.

Allison makes her home in Northern California, with her partner and teenaged son.

Her Field’s End lecture is 7 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Bainbridge High School LGI Auditorium.

Tickets are $12 adults, $10 seniors and students, available at Eagle Harbor Books, online at www.fieldsend.org or at the door if not sold out.

Information on this and other Field’s End events can be found on the Web site as well. wu