By Nava Atlas | On May 12, 2021 | Updated September 5, 2026 | Comments (2)
This brief biography of Rachel Field (September 19, 1894 – March 15, 1942), a noted yet often neglected American author, will highlight her extensive body of work in the areas of adult fiction, poetry, and children’s fiction.
She’s perhaps best remembered for All This and Heaven Too (1938), which was adapted into a film starring Bette Davis, and Hitty: Her First Hundred Years (1929), an award-winning children’s book.
Several of her other books were adapted into films starring prominent Hollywood stars of the time, and upon her untimely death in 1942, newspaper editor Laura Benet remembered her as a calming and reassuring presence to all of those who knew her. Read More→
By Nancy Snyder | On May 11, 2021 | Updated August 24, 2022 | Comments (2)
In the course of American letters, there have been very few writers who are able to approach the iconoclastic status and cultural significance that Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) gained in her sixty-year career as an essayist, documentarian, political activist and novelist.
Beginning with her classic essay, Notes on Camp (1964), Sontag embraced her role as one of the country’s premier public intellectuals; and, with her signature style of always dressing in black — combined with her long black hair with one distinctive white streak framing her face — Sontag became instantly recognizable in pop culture and in the more refined circles of literary discourse.
Sontag achieved what was believed to be impossible for any American writer: she could easily pontificate on structuralist philosophy and on the history of interpretation — subjects not widely embraced in American culture — yet Sontag easily made the crossover from the inaccessible intellectual into the realm of established literary star. Read More→
By Francis Booth | On April 26, 2021 | Updated August 24, 2022 | Comments (3)
The extraordinary Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561 – 1621), was an almost exact contemporary of Shakespeare and has been one of the candidates in various conspiracy theories for the actual author of Shakespeare’s works, in particular his sonnets.
Even though this is nonsense, Mary Sidney, sister of the more famous Philip, was arguably Shakespeare’s – and almost everyone else’s – equal as a poet.
This introduction to Mary Sidney’s life and work is excerpted from Killing the Angel: Early Transgressive British Woman Writers by Francis Booth ©2021, reprinted by permission.
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By Jess Mendes | On April 8, 2021 | Updated November 2, 2025 | Comments (0)
Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was an award-winning Indigenous American poet, novelist, activist, and professor.
She is widely considered a founding figure of contemporary indigenous literature, defining its canon and bringing it to the greater public eye at a time when many denied its existence. She is remembered for her engaging fictional work and groundbreaking critical essays.
Known as one of the key intellectual minds of indigenous literature and history, Paula bridged the literary gap between indigenous writing and feminism. In her lifetime, she published seventeen works, many are still frequently anthologized.
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By Francis Booth | On March 18, 2021 | Updated August 16, 2022 | Comments (0)
Elizabeth Cary, also known as Viscountess Falkland (1585–1639), was an English poet, dramatist, and scholar. Thought to be the first woman to have written and published a play in English (The Tragedy of Mariam, detailed below), she was acknowledged as an accomplished scholar in her lifetime.
This introduction to Elizabeth Cary’s life and work is excerpted from Killing the Angel: Early Transgressive British Woman Writers by Francis Booth ©2021, reprinted by permission.
According to the biography of Elizabeth Cary (née Tanfield, Viscountess Falkland, written by one of her daughters after her death, was quite highly educated, though largely self-taught. Although she had some distinguished tutors she taught herself mainly from books. Read More→
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