I received an email recently from a novelist who is writing about Woolson and returning soon to Italy to visit the sites associated with her. It's exactly three years ago that I was on my trip to England and Italy to follow in Woolson's footsteps. So I found myself looking through my old pictures and thought I would share some of them as a way of…
The back cover copy for Miss Grief and Other Stories is here: Discover the fiction of a writer once deemed America’s “Novelist Laureate.” Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-94) was considered one of the best writers of her generation. She depicted with precise realism and great empathy a broad landscape of Americans and their ways, from the people of the rural Midwest and deep South…
I'm in that in-between time that reminds me of the days and weeks I spent waiting to hear back from agents and then editors. Now, I'm waiting to hear from readers. A select number of galleys have gone out to respected scholars and writers in hopes of getting an eye-catching blurb. Those are starting to come in--five so far, from writers like Elaine…
Last week I learned that I will be receiving a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to write my next book, Reading Little Women: The History of an American Classic. The grant comes from the NEH's new Public Scholar program, which generated some media attention, including this Washington Post article, in which I am quoted. I am thrilled to be able to…
Two sets of proofs arrived on my doorstep today: That means twice the excitement--and twice the work. It's thrilling to see how they will look in print. Scouring each page for errors will be quite a task, though, one that I hope I do well. This is my last chance to make sure that everything is as near to perfect as I can make…
I'm working on the copyedits of the manuscript now and am almost done. This is the time for scrutinizing every comma and hyphen. Here and there I add a phrase for clarity or delete a sentence that seems repetitive. But mostly it's making sure each name is spelled correctly. Today, however, I rediscovered for a moment the joy of research, when you are…
I have been trying for some time to articulate what I see as an important missing link to discussions about how to improve women's status in the literary world--namely, improving their profile in our understanding of the literary past. If students come out of college with little exposure to women writers, as they continue to do in large numbers, then it is no wonder they have a…
I have two new developments that I hope will make it easier for people to learn about what I am writing, reading, and teaching. One is a new website at anneboydrioux.com. (The old URL will forward here.) It is now set up to feature all of my work. This means minimizing the blog, which was before the most prominent feature of my site.…
Samantha Ellis's How To Be a Heroine brought up all kinds of issues for me about how and why women read fiction. My review of it is now up at The Rumpus. "Why do we read? Besides entertainment and escape, intellectual stimulation, and exposure to a world beyond our limited experience, one of the most fundamental reasons is to gain a perspective on our own…