By Nava Atlas | On December 3, 2018 | Updated February 11, 2023 | Comments (0)
Anne Bradstreet (March 20, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was one of the most prominent early American poets, and the first writer in the American colonies to be published.
It was considered unacceptable for women of her time to write, but Anne rejected the prevailing notions of women’s inferiority. She was roundly criticized, not for the work itself, but for daring to make her work public.
Though Anne wrote sincerely and lovingly about her family, she also expressed her struggles as a woman and as a mother in her poetry.
Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On November 28, 2018 | Updated December 27, 2023 | Comments (5)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) gained renown for her autobiographical writings reflecting her life as an American pioneer. Her Little House series of books have been beloved by generations of young readers.
Born in a log cabin on the edge of an area called “Big Woods” in Pepin, Wisconsin, her life was the inspiration for her novels and richly informed her memoirs.
The Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon through Kansas and Minnesota with all that they owned, until finally settling in De Smet, Dakota Territory. The family loved the open spaces of the prairie, where they farmed and raised animals. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On November 8, 2018 | Updated May 22, 2024 | Comments (2)
Gwendolyn B. Bennett (July 8, 1902 – May 30, 1981) was an American poet, writer, artist, columnist, and arts administrator associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Giddings, Texas, she spent her early childhood on a Paiute Indian Reservation in Nevada, where her parents were teachers.
When she was four, her parents moved to Washington, D.C. so that her father could study law at Howard University, while her mother trained as a beautician.
But all wasn’t well with this upwardly mobile couple; when Gwendolyn was seven, her parents divorced. After her mother gained custody, she was kidnapped by her father, who, along with his new wife, moved her around the northeast for several years.
Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On October 31, 2018 | Updated October 22, 2024 | Comments (0)
Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974), born Anne Gray Harvey, was an American poet. Though she was considered one of the pioneers of modern confessional poetry, her artistry reached far beyond that genre.
Born in Newton, MA, she grew up in a middle-class home in Weston, MA. Her dysfunctional family life set the stage for her lifelong struggles with mental illness.
Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother, a housewife with frustrated literary aspirations. Anne’s later writings reflect an upbringing of abuse and hostility. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On October 16, 2018 | Updated April 25, 2026 | Comments (0)
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→
Categories: 
Comments: