Born Erica Mann in 1942, Erica Jong was an award-winning poet, winning the American Academy of Poets Award in 1963 and publishing the critically acclaimed book of verse, Fruits and Vegetables (1971), before publishing her groundbreaking novel of female sexuality, Fear of Flying (1973). Her best-known works follow the sexual awakening and subsequent life and career of Isadora Zelda White Stollerman Wing; they begin with Flying, and continue with How to Save Your Own Life (1977) and Parachutes and Kisses (1984). In the 1960s, before she achieved success as a writer, Jong taught English at the City College of City University of New York and spent time in Germany as a faculty member of the… University of Maryland, overseas division, in Heidelberg. In 1995, she was a judge in fiction for the National Book Awards.