Maxine Combs

Background

Maxine Combs was born on June 14, 1937, in Dallas, Texas, United States. She was a daughter of Eugene Maxwell and Sayd Frances Solow. Maxine Combs had siblings: Dana Elizabeth Sambor, Robert Solow, Rita Solow and Mary Joan Solow.

Education

Maxine Combs got a bachelor's degree at Mills College in 1958. Maxine Combs gained a Master of Arts at Wayne State University in 1961. Maxine Combs earned a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon in 1968.

Career

From 1963 till 1965 Maxine Combs worked as an instructor in English at Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho. From 1966 till 1969 Maxine Combs was an instructor in English at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. From 1970 till 1974 Maxine Combs worked as an assistant professor of English at American University in Washington, DC. From 1972 till 1977 Maxine Combs was an assistant professor of English at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC. From 1979 till 1988 Maxine Combs was an assistant professor at George Mason University. From 1981 till 1988 Maxine Combs was an assistant professor of English at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC. From 1988 till 1989 Maxine Combs worked as an instructor in English at Howard University, Washington, DC. In 1990 Maxine Combs became an assistant professor of English at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC. She also served as a fiction editor of the Antietam Review, an annual journal of literature and photography.

Maxine Combs was a novelist and poet who wrote five books: Listening for Wings (2002), The Inner Life of Objects (2000), Swimming Out of the Collective Unconscious (1999), Handbook of the Strange (1996), and The Foam of Perilous Seas (1990). Publishers Weekly called her novel The Inner Life of Objects “intellectually and spiritually provocative.” Her other writings include Letters from Burning Buildings (poetry chapbook), 1989. This work was represented in anthologies. Maxine Combs was a contributor of poems, stories, and reviews to periodicals, including Piedmont Literary Review, Wooster Review, Far Point, Poet Lore, Habersham Review, Iris, and Kalliope.

Achievements

• In 1988, Combs won the Fiction Prize in the Larry Neal Writers’ Awards Competition, which was sponsored by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Maxine Combs also won the Larry Neal Award for Swimming Out of the Collective Unconscious.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Swimming Out of the Collective Unconscious 1989
  • Handbook of the Strange 1995
  • The Inner Life of Objects 2000
  • Listening for Wings 2002

Membership

• member

  Writer’s Center , United States

• member

  The Wineberry Press , United States

Personality

Maxine was a smart, delicate, modest woman. She was quite curious.

Physical Characteristics: Maxine was slim.

Interests

• hiking, observing wild flowers, orchids

Connections

Maxine Combs married Edouard Gauthier on December 27, 1959. They got divorced. Maxine Combs married Bruce Combs in June 1967. They got divorced. Maxine Combs married Martin Bernstein on February 20, 1992. She had two adopted children from her second marriage: Bella, Wayne.

Father:

Eugene Maxwell

Mother:

Sayd Frances (Travis) Solow

Ex-husband:

Edouard Gauthier

Ex-husband:

Bruce Combs

husband:

Martin Bernstein

Daughter:

Bella Combs

Son:

Wayne Combs

Sister:

Dana Elizabeth Sambor

Brother:

Robert Solow

Sister:

Rita Solow

Daughter:

Mary Joan Solow

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, TV, & Other Fields
  2010