I have been reading a lot about how women writers continue to face doubts about their legitimacy, from without and within. (The latest a lengthy interview with a group of women writers.) And I have been reading about how today’s women writers would like to be known simply as writers, despite knowing how unlikely it (still) is that critics and readers will simply…
Back to revising chapter one. I have already cut out 600 words--no small feat. But there is one piece that could never be removed. Although Constance was only weeks old when it happened, it would shape the rest of her life. Here is how I describe it: Only two days after Constance’s birth, her five older sisters came down with fevers, and ominous…
I am happy to report that my biography of Woolson has found a publisher. Here is the announcement that appeared in Publisher’s Marketplace: Professor at University of New Orleans Anne Boyd Rioux's PORTRAIT OF A LADY NOVELIST, the first biography of Constance Fenimore Woolson, a critically acclaimed 19th century American writer who served as the model for her friend Henry James's "Portrait of…