By Nava Atlas | On April 22, 2020 | Updated May 22, 2022 | Comments (0)
Anaïs Nin (1903 – 1977), an iconic literary figure of the 20th century, was best known for her Diary series. A trove of books by Anaïs Nin has recently been reissued in updated editions by Swallow Press, the premier U.S. publisher of her works.
Swallow Press is a division of Ohio University Press, and many of these updated editions have been edited by Paul Herron. As founder and editor of Sky Blue Press, Herron publishes the journal A Café in Space and digital editions of the fiction of Anaïs Nin, as well as a new collection of Nin erotica, Auletris. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 17, 2020 | Updated January 30, 2026 | Comments (0)
Dust Tracks on a Road, Zora Neale Hurston’s 1942 autobiography, has confounded critics and scholars from the time of its publication, even as it has enthralled and entertained readers.
It was the most commercially successful book she published during her lifetime, though it has since been eclipsed by her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Zora (1891 – 1960) studied anthropology at Barnard College in the 1920s, becoming the first African-American student at the prestigious college. With her larger-than-life personality, she quickly became a big name in the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 13, 2020 | Updated September 2, 2022 | Comments (0)
Dawn Powell (1896 – 1965) is considered a “writer’s writer,” though nearly all of her work was out of print by the time she died. Overcoming a hard-knock early life in the American midwest, she moved to New York City in 1918 and fell in love with it. Dawn Powell’s New York novels and stories are among the most enduring of her works.
Though she wrote prolifically throughout her life, producing novels, short stories, poetry, and plays, she didn’t gain much notoriety — for better or worse — during her lifetime. To the joy of devoted fans and new readers alike, many of her works have been rediscovered and rereleased. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 2, 2020 | Updated February 26, 2026 | Comments (0)
Passing by Nella Larsen (1891 – 1964), published in 1929, is one of the most iconic novels of the Harlem Renaissance era, the movement that celebrated the ascendence of Black writers, artists, and performers in the 1920s.
As the daughter of a white Danish immigrant mother and a mixed-race father from the Danish West Indies, the theme of Nella Larsen’s life, and in effect, her work, was that of a sense of non-belonging — not to any community, nor even to her immediate family.
Larsen was the first woman of color to graduate from library school and to receive the Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing. Read More→
By Miki Pfeffer | On March 26, 2020 | Updated October 28, 2023 | Comments (0)
Grace King’s life (1852 – 1932) spanned two wars, various epidemics, disruptive politics, and fluctuating economics. Her literary career began in 1885 when two northern editors came to New Orleans to write up the south and find local writers at the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition.
Richard Watson Gilder of Century Magazine challenged King to write her first short story, and Charles Dudley Warner placed it and then mentored her into the publishing world.
Over almost five decades, King wrote short stories and novellas, biographies and histories, genealogy, and a memoir. Her path reflected the shifting changes in taste. As with other women writers whose works disappeared from the literary canon, she is again receiving attention for her sensitivity and knowledge of a particular time and place. Read More→
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