By Nava Atlas | On October 5, 2017 | Updated May 1, 2025 | Comments (28)
It may be surprising that the iconic poet Sylvia Plath, who wrote extensively and evocatively of death and suicide in her poetry, left a note of only four words before taking her own life. A debate has stirred ever since — was Sylvia Plath’s suicide note a death knell, or a cry for help?
Sylvia Plath’s note simply said “Please call Dr. Horder” — along with this doctor’s phone number. Could a slip of paper bearing these four words even be considered a suicide note at all? For whose eyes was it intended?
When Sylvia Plath committed suicide in February of 1963, it wasn’t the first time she had tried to take her own life. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On September 25, 2017 | Updated December 11, 2022 | Comments (0)
George Sand’s first novel, Indiana (1832), argued for the freedom of young women to follow their hearts, make their own terrible mistakes, and learn from them in order to grow and be true to themselves. Only then could they become equal partners to their husbands.
Indiana is a young woman married to a much older man. She falls in love with a rake who has seduced her own maid. Indiana’s passion is nonetheless awakened by her perfidious lover.
The restrictive French marriage laws of the time and double standards of the time created a perilous path for Indiana’s passage to womanhood. Read More→
By Marta McDowell | On September 22, 2017 | Updated December 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
You may know the fictional version of Laura Ingalls Wilder from the Little House books, that bumper crop of novels for young readers brought out by Harper & Brothers in the 1930s and ‘40s.
Or from the NBC television adaption first aired in the 1970s and ‘80s, starring Melissa Gilbert as Laura and Michael Landon as a heartthrob version of Charles “Pa” Ingalls.
Behind the fictional Laura was the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867 – 1957), a late bloomer in terms of her literary life. She was well into her forties before she was ever paid for a piece of writing, and sixty-five when the first Little House book was published. So those of you who are just getting started at whatever age, take heart. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On September 20, 2017 | Updated October 7, 2025 | Comments (2)
Each year in late September, Banned Books Week highlights books — usually critically acclaimed and beloved by readers — that have been frequently challenged or banned outright. Read on to find out why some classic books by women authors have been challenged or banned in times past and into the present.
Some books have been challenged from the time they were first in print; others banned outright by certain schools, parents groups, and religious organizations. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On September 15, 2017 | Updated January 28, 2024 | Comments (6)
A number of classic women authors were known for their penchant for wearing men’s clothing. And in some, if not most of the instances presented here, it’s not merely cross-dressing for fun and comfort, but an expression of the duality of the writer’s nature.
It’s no longer unusual for women to wear pants or man-tailored jackets,. But in the context of the time and place in which the following authors lived, it was an act of rebellion and occasionally a statement of more fluid identity.
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