Author biography

Ouida (Louise de la Ramée), English Victorian Novelist

Louise de la Ramée, (known by her pen name of Ouida; January 1, 1839 January 25, 1908) was an English novelist of French extraction. Born in Bury St. Edmunds, England, her nom de plume was supposedly suggested by a young sister’s efforts to pronounce “Louise.”

The best-known of her many works are A Dog of Flanders, a children’s book that has been adapted to film numerous times, and Under the Flag. She wrote more than forty novels, plus many short stories and children’s books. She also contributed numerous articles and essays to magazines and journals.

Her novels dealt with all phases of European society, some of her themes being treated with cleverness and skill, often with cynical railing at the weaknesses of her characters. Read More→


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Lore Segal, Wry Chronicler of Survivor & Refugee Life

Lore Segal (March 8, 1928 – October 7, 2024) chronicled her experiences as a Holocaust survivor and an immigrant in search of a home who eventually found her way to the United States. Her fiction was oddly humorous and yet deeply insightful.

Poet Carolyn Kizer, writing about Segal’s 1985 novel Her First American in the New York Times Book Review, said Segal came “closer than anyone to writing The Great American Novel,” even though, Kizer noted with a touch of irony, its main characters were Black people and Jewish refugees and it was not written by a man. Read More→


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Effie Lee Newsome, Harlem Renaissance Era Poet

Effie Lee Newsome (1885–1979), was a writer, illustrator, and librarian whose poetry for adults and children made her a notable literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

From the time her poetry was first published in NAACP’s The Crisis, her work was regularly featured in anthologies and other publications, particularly in the 1920s. 

Mary Effie Lee was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Wilberforce, Ohio. Her parents were Mary Elizabeth Ashe Lee and Benjamin Franklin Lee. Her clergyman father was editor-in-chief of the Christian Recorder and served as president of Wilberforce University. Read More→


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Ellen Glasgow, Southern Writer Worth Rediscovering

Ellen Glasgow (April 22, 1873 – November 21, 1945) was one of the South’s most eminent writers of her day. Today she’s far less known than contemporaries like Edith Wharton and Willa Cather, despite having created an impressive body of work.

Ellen’s output included novels, collections of short stories and poems, a treatise on how to write fiction, and an autobiography. She was also the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1942. Today, if she is remembered for anything, it’s more for her influence than her literary talent. 

It’s well worth rediscovering this often overlooked writer.

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Flora Thompson, Author of Lark Rise to Candleford

Flora Thompson (December 5, 1876 – May 21, 1947), was an English novelist and poet, best known for her semi-autobiographical trilogy Lark Rise to Candleford.

The commercial and critical success of the books — Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green — is such that they have never been out of print, and were adapted by the BBC for a four-season series in 2008. Read More→


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