By Nava Atlas | On August 29, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
Gone With the Wind — the book — was a publishing phenomenon. Not within memory had an American novel been so long (1,037 pages, a half-million words) or weighed so much (3.5 pounds).
The following narrative was originally published in The Story of Gone With the Wind by Bob Thomas, © 1967 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., National Publishers, Inc., New York.
MacMillan published GWTW at a time when the book industry, like all others in the U.S., was still suffering from the results of the Depression. At least one person was concerned about the enterprise: Margaret Mitchell. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 27, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
In 1971, Linda Nochlin, a well-regarded art historian and critic, asked the provocative question, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in essay that quickly became iconic.
Now a standard of feminist art theory and history, it explores the institutional barriers that prevented women, but for a few exceptions, to rise to the level of their male peers in the art world.
Exactly 60 years earlier, pioneering feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman (best known for The Yellow Wallpaper) examined the same question in a chapter of one of her lesser-known works of nonfiction, The Man-Made World (1911) — originally titled Our Androcentric Culture. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 24, 2017 | Updated October 1, 2024 | Comments (3)
If you’re looking for some inspiration to sit yourself down and set words to paper (or screen), these images of women authors at their writing desks (posed though they are) might just do the trick.
A famous quote goes something like: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” Attributed to Mary Heaton Vorse, variations of it have been credited to (mostly male) authors from Ernest Hemingway to Kingsley Amis. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 23, 2017 | Updated May 6, 2026 | Comments (2)
To commemorate the centenary of iconic poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 – 2000), A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life and Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks was published in 2017.
The author of this biography, Angela Jackson (herself a poet as well as a playwright and novelist) was granted unprecedented access to Brooks’s family and personal papers. She provides new perspectives on the woman who would be the first Black American writer to receive a Pulitzer prize. Brooks won the award for her 1949 poetry collection, Annie Allen.
At the time, Brooks already had a young son, Hank. About a year and a half later her daughter Nora was born. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 17, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (4)
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 – 2000), a highly honored poet, broke new ground speaking to the black and female experience in America. Born in 1917 and raised in Chicago, there is much to celebrate about Gwendolyn Brooks, a truly iconic poet.
In 1945, she broke into book publishing with the well-received A Street in Bronzeville, referring to an area in the Chicago’s South Side. This collection led to numerous prestigious awards and a life in poetry.
Here are five things to love about Gwendolyn Brooks, a great American poet — and there are lots of other things to admire, so learn more about her and better yet, read her work! Read More→
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