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…
The manuscript is done—it just needs copy editing and proofing, and then it will be a book. But it seems there is one more major hurdle I hadn't counted on. After spending the last five years writing this book, everything now hangs upon getting permission to quote from the letters of the figures I’m writing about. Chief among them are, of course, Constance…
Last weekend in Washington, D.C., 22 Woolson scholars—or Woolites (as we call ourselves)—gathered to share their research and celebrate the Woolson Society’s twentieth anniversary. Twenty-two participants may not sound like much, but their energy and enthusiasm far exceed their numbers. As the conference organizer, I had my share of worries, but they faded in the midst of so much conviviality and strong scholarship.…
Over the past two weeks, a flurry of emails and a phone call from my editor and her assistant has signaled that the production process for my biography has begun. Incredibly, Norton had its “launch” meeting for next winter’s titles last week. It’s hard to believe that the long process has already begun, one year before the book will finally be released. Decisions…
By the time Constance Fenimore Woolson ended her life at the age of fifty-four, she complained that her entire right side was deformed from writing for nine to ten hours a day. Over the years she had learned to use a stand-up desk and write with her pen between her third and fourth fingers. And she had endured countless remedies, including electrotherapy. By…
Day one of the final revisions is here. Finally, a whole day without grading, prepping for classes, or writing letters of recommendations has materialized. I have cleared my desk, leaving only my computer, a lamp, a glass of water, a framed portrait of Woolson, and the manuscript with my editor’s comments. (I’m ignoring the stacks of papers and piles of books crowding my…
Last week I was in New York for 3 glorious days. Two of those were spent at BinderCon, the first Out of the Binders conference for women writers. (The name is inspired by Mitt Romney’s clueless comments about binders full of women in the 2012 presidential campaign.) Speakers included Jill Abramson, formerly of the New York Times, Anna Holmes, formerly of Jezebel, and…
Publishing online is a quite an experience for an academic. Last week I published two pieces—one I had written a couple of months ago, the other I had written very recently. The first, a review of recent biographies about J. D. Salinger and Harper Lee at the Los Angeles Review of Books, was part of my larger goal of building a reputation as…
Perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked, but I was when I read the Washington Post’s review of Karen Abbott’s new book, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, about four women who participated in the Civil War. Jonathan Yardley compares what he sees as the book’s troubling passages to writing “borrowed from the pages of a women’s magazine.” Apparently, women’s magazines are full of writing that he…
No one introduced me to Woolson. I didn’t discover her writings in a class in college or in graduate school. I didn’t stumble upon an essay about her or find her buried in a footnote somewhere. My first encounter with her was altogether different. You could call it a fluke or maybe fate. I was a graduate student with a burning desire to know…