Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) is this gloriously perplexing author’s absurdist collection of prose-poems — if you want to call them that. Critics have long been divided as to whether this 1914 book is a brilliant compilation of cubist literature or Stein’s intentional prank on the reading public.
One of Stein’s earliest published works, Tender Buttons is an experiment in language, her attempt to “create a word relationship between the word and the things seen.” Since Stein was so much the self-proclaimed genius, it’s doubtful she would have created this slim volume purely as a joke. Read More→
Marilla of Green Gables, a novel by Sarah McCoy (2018), is a historical journey that imagines the life of Marilla Cuthbert long before she and her brother Matthew adopt Anne Shirley, better known to readers as Anne of Green Gables.
In the publisher’s words: “For anyone who loves the original Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery and longs for more stories from Prince Edward Island, Marilla of Green Gables, a new novel by New York Times Bestselling author Sarah McCoy (William Morrow, October 23, 2018) will be an incredibly rewarding rewarding return to the beloved stories. Read More→
Sarah McCoy, author of Marilla of Green Gables (2018) explores the formidable yet loving Marilla Cuthbert (who raises the irrepressible orphan Anne Shirley, better known as Anne of Green Gables) in this meditation on family, community, and character:
It’s clear from the first chapter of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s acclaimed Anne of Green Gables who is in charge: Marilla Cuthbert. My mother first read this novel to me, and I didn’t bat an eyelash at the clear delineation of matriarchal power. Read More→
On a recent visit to The Morgan Library in New York City, I spotted a tiny autograph manuscript of the poem “The Night of Storms has Passed” by Emily Brontë, dated June 10, 1837. In tiny, barely legible script on a card perhaps 3 by 4 inches, it was written shortly before her nineteenth birthday.
Remaining unpublished in her lifetime, it has since been included in collected poems by Emily, perhaps the most inscrutable of the Brontë sisters. The text accompanying the poem read as follows: Read More→
Here are more than a dozen women poets of the Harlem Renaissance, some of whom have been somewhat or largely forgotten, but whose words and lives deserve to be rediscovered and read.
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a fertile decade for Black creators of all kinds — writers, musicians, playwrights, and artists. Like many creative movements, it was male-dominated, but many women rose to prominence.
More women writers who made a lasting impact can be found in Renaissance Women: 13 Female Writers of the Harlem Renaissance, some of whom will also appear in the following list. Read More→
Matilda Joslyn Gage was born in 1826 in Cicero, New York, near Syracuse. She lived all her life in the Syracuse area but also spent time with her adult children who lived in Dakota Territory. Her home in Fayetteville, New York, is now a museum.
In 1893, a deputy sheriff knocked on Matilda Joslyn Gage’s door in Fayetteville, New York. He served her with a supreme writ, court papers summoning her to appear before a judge for breaking the law.
“All of the crimes which I was not guilty of rushed through my mind,” she wrote later, “but I failed to remember that I was a born criminal—a woman.” Her crime: registering to vote. The verdict: guilty as charged. Read More→
Ann Petry (October 12, 1908 – April 28, 1997) was the first American Black woman to produce a book (The Street, 1946) whose sales topped one million. Ultimately, it sold a million and a half copies.
Encounters with the pervasive racism that permeated American life in their time were relatively rare — though not entirely absent — in the relatively sheltered life that Ann and her siblings experienced. Read More→
