By Marcie McCauley | On August 9, 2019 | Updated February 7, 2026 | Comments (1)
Natalie Babbitt (July 28, 1932 – October 31, 2016) was an American author and illustrator of children’s books, best known for Tuck Everlasting (1975).
Born in Dayton, Ohio, her first ambition was to be a pirate. By second grade, she decided that she wanted to grow up to be a librarian.
She discussed her aspirations in Anita Silvey’s The Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators: “I might have made a pretty good librarian, but with my distaste for heavy exercise, I would probably have made a poor pirate.”
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By Nava Atlas | On August 6, 2019 | Updated August 20, 2022 | Comments (0)
Doris Lessing, (October 22, 1919 – November 17, 2013) was a British novelist, playwright, poet, short story writer, and biographer. One of the most revered voices in modern literature, she has written intelligently and passionately about politics, parenting, aging, love relationships, and feminism.
She was born Doris May Tayler in what was then Persia (present-day Iran) to British parents, Captain Alfred Tayler and Emily Maude Tayler. When she was five, her parents moved with her to Rhodesia (what is now Zimbabwe) to farm crops on one thousand acres of land.
Observing the strife caused by the British in their colonial rule of the African nation, she developed a strong moral compass and political bent. Read More→
By Elodie Barnes | On August 2, 2019 | Updated March 15, 2025 | Comments (2)
Natalie Clifford Barney (October 31, 1876 – February 2, 1972) was an American-born writer of poems, epigrams, pensées, and novels.
She made her home in Paris, where she was known more for her literary salon and her colorful personal life than her writing, despite publishing ten critically acclaimed books in her lifetime.
Natalie was “the wild girl of Cincinnati,” the grande dame of the literary salon and Parisian lesbian circles, and used her considerable wealth and influence to promote talented writers and artists from around the world.
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By Skyler Gomez | On July 27, 2019 | Updated August 24, 2022 | Comments (0)
Ntozake Shange, born Paulette Linda Williams (October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018), was an African American playwright, poet, and feminist. As a Black feminist, her work often shed light on issues relating to Black power, race, and gender.
Among her many powerful works, she’s best known for the Obie Award-winning play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Photo at right, AP. 1976.
Born in Trenton, New Jersey, she was the oldest of four children in an upper-middle-class family. Her father, Paul T. Williams, was an Air Force surgeon, and her mother, Eloise Williams, was a psychiatric social worker and an educator. Read More→
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