By Aiyana Edmund | On April 21, 2018 | Updated August 23, 2022 | Comments (0)
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (August 8, 1896 – December 14, 1953) was an American novelist and memoirist best known for The Yearling (1938), the story of a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, and the hard choices that ensue.
The Yearling won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1939 and was made into a successful movie in 1946.
Rawlings is also known for her writings about her adopted home in Cross Creek, Florida, where she bought an orange grove in the late 1920s and lived for many decades. Read More→
By Aiyana Edmund | On April 19, 2018 | Updated August 25, 2022 | Comments (0)
P.L. Travers (August 9, 1899 – April 23, 1996), full name Pamela Lyndon Travers, was an Australian-born author best remembered as the author of the Mary Poppins series of books.
She had a vivid imagination from childhood on, and was inspired by her love of reading, favoring fairy tales and myths.
Mary Poppins, one of the best-loved characters in children’s literature, came from a little story she made up while babysitting two young children. It first became a book, then a series, and the basis of the renowned 1964 Disney musical film, which greatly displeased the author. Travers wrote other children’s books as well as books for adults focused on mythology. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 10, 2018 | Updated January 7, 2025 | Comments (0)
Helene Johnson (July 7, 1906 – July 6, 1995) was an American poet active in the Harlem Renaissance movement. She grew up surrounded by her mother and aunts, strong women who inspired her distinctive poetic voice.
Born in Boston and raised by her single mother in Brookline and Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, Helene considered herself painfully shy as a child. She found her voice when she turned to writing poetry.
Helene was the cousin of Dorothy West, who would become a respected short story writer and novelist. In the mid-1920s, the two young women, drawn to the energy of Harlem, moved to New York City. Helene took classes at Columbia University, where she met and befriended Zora Neale Hurston., then an ethnology student and budding writer. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 10, 2018 | Updated January 10, 2026 | Comments (1)
Daphne du Maurier (May 13, 1907 – April 19, 1989) was a prolific British novelist, playwright, and short story writer, best known for Rebecca (1938) and other finely constructed works of suspense.
Her novels and stories were rich in detail, with elements of history, romance, and intrigue. Her works, which were quite popular in their time, were sometimes criticized as lacking in depth or intellect, a view that has since been revised.
Du Maurier is best remembered for a half a dozen or so books and stories that were adapted to film. But her publishing credits went well beyond her more famous works to include nearly forty novels and short story collections. She wrote plays and nonfiction and as well, including memoirs of her own talented family. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 2, 2018 | Updated August 13, 2025 | Comments (4)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935) was an American author of fiction and nonfiction, praised for her feminist works that pushed for equal treatment of women and for breaking out of stereotypical roles.
She’s best remembered for the semi-autobiographical work of short fiction, The Yellow Wallpaper.
She was one of the leading activists in the late 19th and early 20th century American women’s movement, and her nonfiction works detailing how women’s lives were impacted by social and economic bias are still relevant. Read More→
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