Brief Overview

Harrison Solow has been honoured with multiple awards for her literary fiction, nonfiction, cross-genre writing, poetry and professional writing, most notably a Pushcart Prize for Literature.  She is one of the two best-selling University of California Press authors of all time (at time of publication), a Notable Alumna of Mills College where she earned an MA and MFA, and she holds the rare distinction of a British Doctorate in English Letters from Trinity-Saint David with (according to the examiners) a perfect dissertation. She was recently made a Notable Alumna of Trinity-Saint David.

She has Literature and Writing degrees from three different English-speaking countries and has been, among many other incarnations, a Franciscan nun, editor of a Jewish magazine, and science fiction consultant to the SyFy Channel. A former faculty member at UC Berkeley, she accepted a lectureship at the University of Wales in 2004 and was appointed Writer in Residence there and at Trinity College during her tenure in the UK.

Dr. Solow teaches (and guest lectures on) English and American Literature, Nonfiction, Professional and Cross Genre Writing, Science Fiction, Jewish American Literature, Cultural Studies, Philosophy and Theology at academic, arts and cultural institutions in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. She is published by Simon & Schuster, The University of California Press, Harper Collins, Pocket Books, Cinnamon Press, AGNI, The Pushcart Press and Leica Publishing, and several others in the USA, Wales, Canada and England.

She is an authority on the Original Star Trek series.

Dr Solow is a strong proponent of the traditional Liberal Arts, the Fine Arts and the Utilitarian Arts as separate and equally respectable entities, an advocate for Wales and a patron of literary endeavours. Her book, Felicity & Barbara Pym, about the relevance of literature, has been called “the treasures of a cultured mind” and is now a college course text. Her latest contribution to the literary world is a poem titled 1972, in When There Are Nine, an anthology of poetry honouring Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her forthcoming work, A New American Landscaper, a collaboration with notable photographer, Sandro Miller, will be launched in Spring, 2023. Dr Solow is currently writing a book based on her Pushcart Prize winning essay, Bendithion.

In 2018, she was inducted into the Daughters of the British Empire (DBE) based on both her ancestry and her contribution to English Letters.

Dr. Solow lives in California and elsewhere. She is a recent widow.  Her late husband, executive/producer/writer Herbert F. Solow, with whom she enjoyed an idyllic marriage, was the Head of MGM Studios, Desilu Studios as well as Paramount, and among an array of highly successful movies and television shows, was the executive force behind Star Trek, Mission Impossible and other iconic series. Dr Solow has two sons.

Theology Background

Dr. Solow is a former Franciscan nun. She attended Catholic grammar school, a private Catholic Academy for young women, and two Jesuit Colleges where she studied Philosophy and Theology as well as Fine Arts, Physics/Astronomy and English Literature.

She studied Moral Theology [ethics] Catechetics, Ontology, Psychology of Religion, Apologetics, History of Ecclesiastical Art, Liturgy, Roman Law, Eschatology, Exegesis of both the Old and New Testaments, History of the Ancient Church, Synoptic Gospels, Dogmatic Theology [Patrology, Sacramentology, Trinitology, etc.] Homiletics, Rubrics, and The Philosophy and Theology of Canon Law in university, with Jesuit, Benedictine, Dominican, and Augustinian priests/professors as well as specific spirituality classes with Franciscan friars.

In addition to the above, Dr. Solow studied spirituality (Catechism of Vows, Spirituality of Monastic Life, Post Vatican II Ecclesiology, Sacred Scripture, Lives of the Saints, Meditation and Spiritual Exercises, Sacred Music [Gregorian Chant and Classical Schola], Ecumenism, Teaching of Religion, etc) in her convent classes.

Dr. Solow studied Torah, Talmud, Tanya, and Jewish philosophy, both at the University of Judaism (Now American Jewish University) and privately with rabbis of different denominations for two decades.

She has considerable experience in the Anglican tradition (British and Canadian) as well.

For Academic Bio, please see: https://drharrisonsolow.academia.edu/