books and erotica under various pseudonyms. She gained national attention with her column "The Misanthrope's Corner" in National Review, a conservative magazine of political and social commentary. She also wrote numerous articles for The American Enterprise. Her first book published under her own name was 1975's Southern Ladies and Gentlemen. The work provides a humorous guide to the South for "Yankees". Her most popular book, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady (1985), is a semi-autobiographical work focusing on, among other things, her grandmother's attempts to mold King into a "Southern lady". In Confessions, King says she had relationships with both men and women during college: one woman she fell in love with was killed in a car crash. This relationship was detailed in Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady. She jokingly described herself as a "conservative lesbian feminist" and has been referred to as the "World's Funniest Bi-Sexual-Republican." King later expressed regret at revealing her bisexuality, saying she did not want to be part of the "gay liberation movement" and embraced the concepts of "spinsterhood" and "the old maid." In 1995, King publicly accused the writer Molly Ivins of plagiarizing her work. Ivins publicly acknowledged and apologized for her error in an exchange of letters in the next issue of that magazine, which may be found quoted in an account of the controversy. King, who lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the later years of her life, retired in 2002 (at which time National Review published an anthology of her columns titled STET, Damnit!), but resumed writing a monthly column for National Review in 2006, titled in 2007 "The Bent Pin". A selection of her book reviews and articles was released under the title Deja Reviews: Florence King All Over Again in October 2006. Death Florence King died on January 6, 2016, one day after her 80th birthday, from heart and pulmonary-related diseases. Works (fiction - writing as Laura Buchanan) (fiction) (anthology) References 1936 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American essayists 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American essayists 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American women writers American University alumni American agnostics American columnists American humorists American people of British descent American women essayists American women novelists Bisexual women Christians from Washington, D.C. Episcopalians from Virginia Journalists from Virginia Journalists from Washington, D.C. LGBT Anglicans American LGBT novelists LGBT people from Virginia LGBT people from