By Elodie Barnes | On August 21, 2021 | Updated September 13, 2026 | Comments (3)
The esteemed war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway’s third wife, famously said, “Why should I be a footnote to somebody else’s life?”
She dreaded being remembered mainly for her doomed marriage to the iconic American author. Hemingway and Gellhorn encouraged each other, supported each other, and once they separated, refused to speak of each other.
It all began when one evening, close to Christmas 1936, the young journalist and writer Martha Gellhorn went to a Key West for a drink. She was with her mother, Edna, and younger brother Alfred, taking a break in the winter sun. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On August 8, 2021 | Updated August 27, 2022 | Comments (0)
Mina Loy’s Feminist Manifesto is considered among her most notable works, though it wasn’t published until well after her death. In this 1914 piece, Loy vehemently asserted women’s need to fight for their selfhood rather than subsuming their personalities and desires to those of the patriarchy.
Mina Loy (1882 – 1966), the English-born modernist poet, playwright, and artist was was lauded by her peers for her dense analyses of the female experience in early twentieth-century Western society. The undercurrent of the Manifesto hints at Loy’s struggles with modernism — the artistic philosophy of her day — and its central aesthetic of impersonality.
Feminist Manifesto was finally published in 1982, in The Last Lunar Baedeker, a posthumous collection of her various works, including essays and poetry. Read More→
By Lynne Weiss | On July 13, 2021 | Updated June 15, 2026 | Comments (0)
Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin were significant twentieth-century poets who provided deep friendship and support for one another as they developed and mastered their craft. Literary Ladies Guide has offered fascinating musings and insights into several significant literary friendships between women writers.
But none of these compare in intensity to the literary friendship of Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin, a relationship brought to life in The Equivalents (2020) by Maggie Doherty.
This book is an exploration of the first group of poets and artists to be part of the Institute for Independent Study at Radcliffe College (later the Bunting Institute, and now the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study). Read More→
By Lori McMullen | On July 4, 2021 | Updated March 3, 2023 | Comments (0)
Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) was an American writer and environmentalist who famously fought to protect the Florida Everglades, and also used her talents to advocate for women’s rights and racial justice in Miami and beyond. Here you’ll discover 10 fascinating facts about Marjory Stoneman Douglas, whose multifaceted accomplishments shouldn’t be forgotten.
Marjory’s long life was full of adventure, heartbreak, loss, discovery, and – ultimately – impact on the health and preservation of the wetlands critical to South Florida’s survival.
This unconventional woman helped shape the future of South Florida at a time when Miami was barely more than a frontier town and the “swamp” to the west of it was considered there for the taking by developers, speculators, and agricultural industrialists. Read More→
By Melanie P. Kumar | On June 23, 2021 | Updated January 28, 2024 | Comments (1)
Quite often in life, the innocence and idealism of one’s childhood years are intruded upon by the realities and pragmatism of adult life.
The author in question is Enid Blyton, who was called “a racist, sexist homophobe and not a well-regarded writer,” by the members of the Royal Mint, who in 2019 blocked attempts to give her a commemorative coin.
When one is forced to reckon with the labeling of a favorite author of one’s childhood, there will necessarily need to be a dialogue with the past to find a balance with the present. Read More→
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