Dorothy Rice is the author of two memoirs, the Small Press Distribution best-seller GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK: A Memoir of Self-Acceptance (Otis Books, June 2019), and THE RELUCTANT ARTIST (Shanti Arts, 2015), a hybrid art book/memoir. Her essays, stories and flash have been widely published in literary journals and magazines, including The Rumpus, Hippocampus, Brevity online and The Saturday Evening Post. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, recognized by the regrettably-defunct Glimmer Train Magazine, and long-listed for the 2018 Bath Flash Fiction Award. Her essay "In Photographs" was awarded second place in the 2018 Kalinithi Awards. 

Dorothy co-directs the nonprofit Stories on Stage Sacramento, a literary performance series that has been bringing authors, actors and audiences together for over ten years. Dorothy also works for 916 INK (a Sacramento-area nonprofit, facilitating creative writing workshops for youth, using the AWA method). She provides developmental editing and coaching services for writers and reads non-fiction submissions for Hippocampus Magazine. ​

At age 60, following a 30-year career managing solid waste, hazardous waste and water quality programs with the California EPA (her last position was Executive Director of the California State Water Resources Control Board), and raising five children, Rice earned an MFA in creative writing from UC Riverside's low-residency program. A San Francisco native, Dorothy now lives in Sacramento with her husband, a pair of frenetic pound puppies, two vegan guinea pig brothers, and within easy visiting distance of her sisters, son and grandchildren.