Writing American Women – serie

Drawing on rare sources and archival material, Helen Barolini has here collected 56 works by Italian American women writers. The volume features: prose, poetry, one play and a large section of fiction.

An innovative study of the contemporary memoir, blending autobiography and literary analysis to illuminole the intellectual, cultural, and emotional dynamics of life writing Maintaining that the memoir requires a more personal relationship with its readers and critics, Janet Mason Ellerby calls for ""intimate readings."" She begins this work with her own memoir, narrating a long-held secret - her pregnancy at age sixteen, her life in the Florence Crittendon Home for Unwed Mothers, and the birth and adoption of her first daughter. She goes on to tell about the aftermath of this pivotal time in and the painful consequences of keeping a secret. Included are detailed analyses of more than a dozen contemporary memoirs by American women, all of which share a common purpose: the disclosure of secrets. Ellerby describes the costs of this secrecy and explores the possibilities of breaking intractable codes of silence. It is a study that is germane to the intellectual and emotional lives of all women. This book is the first serious exploration of a genre that has gained acceptance with an expanding audience of readers. Ellerby maintains that the efforts of memoirists to plumb their painful pasts has cultural significance and precipitates important social work. The memoir joins fiction and autobiography as an important commentary on modern life.

Author Susan Letzler Cole lost her mother, Alice, to cancer in 1990. In this ""autobiography of two voices,"" she traces a daughter's search to recover the ""missing parts"" of a mother, to know her as an individual for the first time. Shunning linear narrative, Cole experiments with a variety of approaches: letters written to her mother three years after Alice died at the age of 78; oral history via taped conversations between mother and daughter during Alice's illness; excerpts from her 14-year-old mother's 1926 diary juxtaposed with the author's expost facto letters to the adolescent diarist. Finally, Cole's own diary entries contemplate vital themes of family, love, and time. At once innovative and heartfelt, ""Missing Alice"" seeks to make heard one of those ""lost"" women's voices that speak from and help create the world that we know. It is a fine choice for classes in biography, autobiography, and women's writing, as well as American Jewish and immigrant experience, oral history/memoir, and grief therapy.

Kate Field was among the first celebrity journalists. A literary and cultural sensation, she reported the news while frequently becoming news herself because of her sharp wit and vibrant presence. She wrote for several prestigious newspapers, such as the ""Boston Post"", ""Chicago Tribune"", and ""New York Herald"", as well her own ""Kate Field's Washington"". Field's friends and professional acquaintances included Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Anthony Trollope, and George Eliot. Legendary novelist Henry James patterned the character of Henrietta Stackpole after her in ""The Portrait of a Lady"".In this eloquent and immensely readable biography, Gary Scharnhorst offers a fascinating, often poignant portrait of a fiercely intelligent and enormously independent woman who contributed significantly to America's intellectual and social life in the late nineteenth century. Kate Field was an outspoken advocate for the rights of black Americans and founder of the first women's club in America. She campaigned to make Yosemite a national park and saved John Brown's Adirondack farm for the nation. Field's activities will interest students and scholars of nineteenth-century American literature, women's studies, and journalism, as well as patrons of public and academic libraries.