By Nava Atlas | On April 1, 2018 | Updated July 5, 2026 | Comments (0)
If you’d like a taste of a classic author’s work but don’t have the time or patience to read a tome, consider the novella form. Here we’ll look at novellas by classic women authors that make great introductions to to their work.
What defines a novella? It’s generally based on word count of between 17,000 and 40,000, though it isn’t always so cut and dry. The Awakening by Kate Chopin is often described as a novella, though as far as word count, it’s slightly outside that parameter. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On March 12, 2018 | Updated March 9, 2023 | Comments (3)
Daphne du Maurier (1907 – 1989) was a British novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Here we present some fascinating facts about Daphne du Maurier and her literary life.
Daphne was born and raised in London, growing up in a creative family connected with the literary and theatrical worlds. Though she’s best remembered for the 1938 romantic thriller Rebecca, it’s noteworthy that she was an incredibly prolific writer of novels, short stories, and biographies.
As her fame grew, she guarded her privacy fiercely. Here’s more about this immensely talented author.
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By Nava Atlas | On March 10, 2018 | Updated March 25, 2026 | Comments (2)
Pairing Madeleine L’Engle‘s middle-grade classic, A Wrinkle in Time, with the concept of literary rejection might seem odd, given its iconic stature. But I would challenge anyone to come up with a story that better illustrates the fine line between rejection and acceptance than hers:
“A Wrinkle in Time was almost never published. You can’t name a major publisher who didn’t reject it. When we’d run through forty-odd publishers, my agent sent it back. We gave up.”
Most editors thought it was too dark and complex for children. After some time, L’Engle made contact with John Farrar of Farrar Straus Giroux through a friend, and the rest is publishing history. Read More→
By Aiyana Edmund | On March 7, 2018 | Updated June 16, 2026 | Comments (19)
Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963) was a gifted writer of poetry who ended her life at the age of thirty. Many of the truths behind her final years were exposed after her death, discovered in letters revealing the dark secrets of her tragic relationship with Ted Hughes.
Attractive, smart, and ambitious, she seemed to have what it took to succeed. But it was during her years at Smith College, where she was well-liked and academically adept, that she made her first attempt on her life.
Journal entries in her diary later revealed how much Plath struggled from that time on, until she took her own life. Her body of poetic work, much of it published posthumously, also reveals much about her state of mind during the brief journey of her adult life. Read More→
By Aiyana Edmund | On February 28, 2018 | Updated January 12, 2025 | Comments (4)
As a Black woman science fiction writer, Octavia E. Butler (1947 – 2006) blazed a trail when she broke through the then-white male-dominated genre. Here we’ll delve into some fascinating facts about Octavia E. Butler.
In her New York Times obituary, she was described as “an internationally acclaimed science fiction writer whose evocative, often troubling novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power, and ultimately, what it meant to be human.”
It wasn’t easy to break into publishing, but after publishing some short stories, Octavia’s first novel was Patternmaster (1976). It was the first in what would become a four-volume series. Central to these novels are Patternists, people with telepathic powers. Read More→
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