Shirley Abbott

Shirley Jean Tomkievicz ( Abbott; November 16, 1934, Hot Springs, Arkansas – April 8, 2019, Portland, Oregon) was an American magazine editor, writer, journalist, and historian.

Early life and education Born Shirley Jean Abbott in Hot Springs, Arkansas, her father was a bookmaker who took bets on illegal, off-track horse races, but was quixotically a well-respected member of the community. Abbott graduated in 1952 from high school in Hot Springs, Arkansas, as class valedictorian and in 1956 with a bachelor's degree (cum laude) in English and French from Texas State College for Women (renamed in 1957 Texas Woman’s University). In 1956 she, as one of the winners of an essay contest, was one of twenty young women that Mademoiselle magazine's editors selected as paid guest editors in New York City for their College Issue. She was for the academic year 1957–1958 a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Grenoble and for the academic year 1958–1959 a scholarship graduate student in the French department of Columbia University. published by the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in collaboration with University Health Publishing in New York City.

In September 1964 in Manhattan she married Alexander W. Tomkievicz (1926–2012), a commercial artist.

In 2005 she received Arkansas's Porter Prize for her non-fiction.