Hazel Hall (1886 –1924) was an American poet much beloved in her adopted state of Oregon. She was often referred to, for various reasons, as “The Emily Dickinson of Oregon.” Though she has been widely anthologized on both sides of the Atlantic, she’s no longer well known, yet deserves another look.
By 1910, the city of Portland, Oregon was a lively city of commerce and community. An active population of well over 207,000 established it as the largest city in the Pacific Northwest.
From the port side along the Ocean-accessible Columbia River to the West Bank of the roaring Willamette, people spent their days working in factories, window-shopping, strolling hand-in-hand, riding trolleys, and bustling about in all the ways that folks in large cities have always done. Read More→
It’s still so relevant—a writer with her mouth “open in horror all the time” at “the state of the world” and all the “social injustice, prejudice, and poverty” around her.
That’s how Louise Fitzhugh describes feeling in the mid-1970s—toward the end of her life, in a letter to a friend—in Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy (2020), a biography by Leslie Brody.
In the five years following its publication in 1964, Harriet the Spy sold about 2.5 million copies; that number nearly doubled by 2019. Decades have passed, but she remains relevant: readers continue to freshly fall for—and renew their acquaintance with—Harriet. Read More→
Laura, a detective novel/murder mystery published in 1943, has remained Vera Caspary’s best-known work, partially thanks to the well-regarded film adaptation that followed. The slim yet action-packed story was first serialized in Collier’s magazine in 1942 as Ring Twice for Laura.
In the excellent afterword for the 2005 Feminist Press edition of this book, A.B. Emrys writes:
“Caspary’s fairy tale for working women takes place in a world of men who use women for advancement and self-reflection. The potential darkness of this world places Laura into the noir category and shadows even Caspary’s non-crime fiction … ‘Who can you trust’ was a game working women had to play frequently, and Laura makes evident that women might be labeled femmes fatales because they worked in the male-dominated business world.” Read More→
In Unearthing the Secret Garden, Marta McDowell pays homage to the enduring classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett that has enthralled generations of readers.
Through the universal metaphor of garden cultivation, The Secret Garden conveys a message of hope, and the renewal of the life as well as the self.
The Secret Garden introduced the reader to an unlikely heroine, Mary Lennox, a sickly and neglected 10-year-old born to wealthy British parents in colonial India. After a cholera epidemic kills her parents, Mary is sent to England to live with her uncle in a mysterious house. Read More→
If you do a search on “Poetry Barn,” Google will first serve you an ad for Pottery Barn. Scroll right past that and you’ll arrive at the right destination — The Poetry Barn in West Hurley, New York, a private library and workshop/event space dedicated to all things poetic.
The Poetry Barn is the creation of founding director Lissa Kiernan, who converted a small barn into housing for an inviting 3,000+ volume lending library. In the surroundings of contemporary and classic poetry books, the space is a haven for a myriad of ongoing virtual and in-person workshops and occasional events.
The venue is located on a quiet residential road near the beautiful Ashokan Reservoir in Ulster County, in the Catskill foothills region of New York State. If the weather cooperates, try to schedule some time to walk around the reservoir if you’re making a special trip. Read More→
“As in Laura and now again in Bedelia, Vera Caspary avoids the conventional groove. No mysterious opening doors for her. No velvet-gloved hands or hidden rubies. No eerie cries in the night.
Murder, yes, suspense, yes — plenty of it — but at the core of her stories is a comprehension that illuminates and gives credibility to the incredible actions of men and women.” (from the back cover blurb of the 1945 first US edition).
The following analysis of Bedelia (1945) by Vera Caspary is excerpted from A Girl Named Vera Can Never Tell a Lie: The Fiction of Vera Caspary by Francis Booth ©2022. Reprinted by permission.
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Clarice Lispector (December 10, 1920 — December 9, 1977) was one of the foremost Brazilian writers of her generation. Best known for her novels and short stories, almost all of which experiment with form and language, she was also a journalist and wrote several high-profile columns for national newspapers.
Her works have been internationally acclaimed and widely translated, and she has often been placed alongside writers such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
Born Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector, Clarice Lispector was a Ukraine native. Her parents, Mania and Pinkhas Lispector were Jewish emigrants fleeing from the Russian pogroms. Mania gave birth to Clarice as the family made their way to Europe, and from there, to South America.
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Zelda Fitzgerald (July 24, 1900 – March 10, 1948), known for her beauty and personality, made a name for herself as a socialite, novelist, dancer, and painter.
She was far more than merely the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who called her “the first American flapper.”
Born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, she was the youngest of the children of a prominent couple: Anthony Dickinson Sayre (an Alabama Supreme Court Justice) and Minnie Buckner Machen Sayre, both descended from unfortunate Confederate roots. Zelda was the youngest of their five children.
Zelda enjoyed a privileged upbringing, and from adolescence on, always made a splash in Montgomery’s social scene. She was the belle of country club dances who flaunted conventions by smoking, drinking, and flirting. She starred in ballet recitals, in which she displayed talent.
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