By Nava Atlas | On February 16, 2022 | Updated September 21, 2025 | Comments (0)
Vera Caspary (1899– 1987) was a remarkably prolific American novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Over the course of her long career, she became known as a writer of crime fiction, though she created works in other genres.
With more than twenty novels published (plus others left unpublished), the best known remains Laura (1943). She also wrote long short stories and novellas, not to mention numerous screenplays for Hollywood films, some based on her own works.
Many of her works featured young, forward-thinking women (then called “career girls”) who fought for female autonomy and equality, and refused male protection. Read More→
By Nancy Snyder | On January 16, 2022 | Updated January 13, 2026 | Comments (0)
Sydney Taylor (born Sarah Brenner; October 30, 1904 – February 12, 1978) was an American author best known for All-of-a-Kind Family. This series of autobiographical children’s novels portrays the life of an Eastern European Jewish immigrant family in New York City in the early twentieth century.
Though she wrote several other children’s novels, the five books in the All-of-a-Kind Family series proved to be her lasting legacy, earning a devoted audience for their warm and loving depiction of Jewish life in early twentieth-century America. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On January 11, 2022 | Updated August 25, 2022 | Comments (0)
Anzia Yezierska (October 29, 1880 – November 21, 1970) was a Polish-born Jewish-American writer who achieved renown for her fiction on the immigrant experience in the early twentieth century.
Her most notable novel has remained Bread Givers (1925). She also achieved renown with her first short story collection, Hungry Hearts (1920), and her 1923 novel, Salome of the Tenements (1923).
When her family immigrated to the U.S. in 1893, they were among the masses of Eastern European Jews who arrived between 1880 to 1924. Like many Jewish immigrants, they settled and lived in the immigrant neighborhood of the East side of Manhattan. Read More→
By Elodie Barnes | On January 8, 2022 | Updated March 15, 2025 | Comments (0)
Janet Flanner (March 13, 1892 – November 7, 1978) was an American writer and journalist who spent much of her career writing as Paris correspondent for The New Yorker.
Under the pen name Gênet, she authored the magazine’s “Letter from Paris” for almost fifty years.
She was a prominent member of the expatriate community that settled in Paris between two World Wars, and made her home there until 1975, after which she returned to New York. Portrait at right, Janet Flanner in 1940 (National Portrait Gallery).
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By Tami Richards | On December 15, 2021 | Updated October 10, 2024 | Comments (0)
Beverly Cleary (April 12, 1916–March 25, 2021) was an American author of children’s and middle-grade fiction.
Extraordinarily prolific and beloved by young readers worldwide, sales of her books have exceeded 91 million copies, and many are still in print.
Starting with the series featuring Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy in 1950, she went on to create many unforgettable characters, including Ramona Quimby and Ralph S. Mouse. Read More→
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