| Date |
Topic |
| October 1,
2007 |
The topic was “Writing about Men
Who Loom Large in Our Subjects' Lives.” Diane Jacobs, whose subject is
Abigail Adams and her two sisters, spoke about John Adams. Kathy Chamberlain,
writing about Jane Welsh Carlyle's life in the 1840s, talked about Thomas
Carlyle. Abby Santamaria, engaged in a biography of the communist poet Joy
Davidman, spoke about Joy's husband C. S. Lewis. Kathy also moderated. |
| November 5,
2007 |
Nancy Rubin Stuart, whose biography of Mercy Otis
Warren will be published in July 2008, and Betty Boyd Caroli, author of
The Roosevelt Women, discussed a topic many members had expressed
interest in: “Problems of Voice, Drama, and Context in Narrative.”
Carol Ascher moderated. |
| December 3,
2007 |
This session was devoted to another often-requested
topic: grants, fellowships, residencies, and writers' colonies. WWWL members
with extensive experience in these areas spoke: Elizabeth Brunazzi, Nancy
Kline, Jill Norgren, and Patricia Laurence. Sydney Ladensohn Stern
moderated. |
| January 7,
2008 |
A discussion of “Women Performers”
featured Princeton professor Daphne Brooks, a guest of the seminar, who gave a
talk about her complex, many-faceted subject, the nineteenth century performer
Adah Issacs Menken. Carla L. Peterson moderated. |
| February 4,
2008 |
We returned to a topic of ongoing interest,
“Locating the Line between Fiction and Non-Fiction.” Presenters were
longtime seminar members Alix Kates Shulman and Patricia Valenti. Alix spoke
about her forthcoming memoir To Love What Is (September 2008), and
Patricia discussed turning from the second volume of her biography of Sophia
Hawthorne to work on unearthing a story she had discovered while going through
a bag of letter written to her mother by a man Pat never knew. Polly Howells
moderated. |
| March 3,
2008 |
For “Political Firsts: Women Candidates of the
Nineteenth Century” (in the context of the Democratic primary), Jill
Norgren talked about Belva Lockwood, subject of her recent biography, who
actively campaigned for the American Presidency; and Claire Morris Stern spoke
on Helen Taylor, the first woman to stand for Parliament in England. Both women
ran for office before women had won the right to vote. Guest Bonnie Anderson,
author of Joyous Greetings: the First International Women's Movement
1830-1860, commented. Dorothy O. Helly organized this session, and Kathy
Chamberlain moderated. |
| April 7,
2008 |
Guest Esther Newton, anthropologist and author,
spoke about her memoir-in-progress, My Butch Career. Co-presenter
was Carol Ascher, whose memoir Afterimages will soon be published.
Esther and Carol discussed the virtues and limitations of chronological
narrative, and when to interrupt chronology, as well as the incorporation of
historical events into personal narratives, and the use of photographs. Bell
Gale Chevigny moderated. |
| May 5, 2008 |
Longtime seminar member Sallie Bingham, author of
novels, short stories, plays, poems, and a famously controversial family
memoir, Passion and Prejudice, discussed her new play. A
Dangerous Personality, about Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder of
Theosophy, is opening in New York in June 2008, at the Julia Miles Theater of
the Women's Project. Kathryn Hearst moderated. |
