Women Writing Women's Lives is an ongoing seminar of about sixty women engaged in writing book-length biographies and memoirs. The group first began meeting in 1990 and represents a wide range of feminist perspectives and a variety of professional backgrounds. Our members include academics, independent scholars, and journalists. Membership dues help support our operating expenses. Women Writing Women's Lives is under the aegis of the Center for the Study of Women and Society and the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. For general inquiries, contact WomenWritingWomensLives@gmail.com

MISSION

The places, cultures, and communities in which women live their lives change, as do women's roles, status, interests, and opportunities. Our purpose as a group is to identify these changes, understand their impact, and explain and portray the complex realities of women's lives. In researching and writing biographies of women, we hope to call attention to the reciprocal dynamics between our subjects and society, find new ways of looking at and presenting women's stories, and ultimately influence the way women's stories are perceived and written.

PUBLIC EVENTS

WWWL members are involved in many public events, and the seminar also sponsors public programs on an occasional basis. Upcoming talks and other programs involving WWWL members will be listed here.

• Monday, February 27, 4-5:30 pm: The WWWL Dorothy O. Helly Work-in-Progress Lecture on Sophia Peabody Hawthorne will be held in Room 9204 of the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, New York City. Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, one of the first professional women artists in America, was also a prolific writer. As she put it, “I have an impulse . . . to put as much of myself as possible on paper.” In thousands of pages of carefully constructed letters and journal entries, she exhibits as much artifice as spontaneous disclosure. Her husband, Nathaniel Hawthorne, created his own version of her persona. Long-time member of Women Writing Women’s Lives Patricia Dunlavy Valenti, whose previous books include To Myself a Stranger: A Biography of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, will discuss how the often permeable boundaries between life and art affect work on the second volume of her Sophia Peabody Hawthorne: A Life. The event is free and open to the public.

OBJECTIVES

To encourage members' projects, Women Writing Women's Lives offers a forum in which to discuss approaches, methods, and themes. The seminar meets monthly, from October to May, to present work for discussion, share ideas, and hear about the work of outside presenters. Meetings for 2011-12 will be held on October 3, November 7, December 5, January 9, February 6, March 5, April 2, and May 7.

The following reports about past meetings give an overview of the work of the seminar: 2010-2011 seminars, 2009-2010 seminars, 2008-2009 seminars, 2007-2008 seminars, and the 2006-2007 seminars, 15th anniversary program (Inside Stories: Women's Voices from Prison; see Introductory Remarks and Report by Kathy Chamberlain), and 10th anniversary program (Researching and Marketing Biographies in Cyberspace). Both feminist thought and the practical experiences of working biographers inform these discussions.

ARCHIVES

A Letter of Agreement between Women Writing Women's Lives and the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University, executed on January 30. 2004, places the organizational papers of WWWL in this library, adding to their existing holdings; an online finding aid for the WWWL archives is now available. The Archives Committee of WWWL anticipates that Tamiment will become a significant woman's history archive that will be used by researchers concerned with the history of women's individual and organizational activities, not only nationally and internationally, but with particular attention to women's efforts in the New York Metropolitan area.

MEMBERSHIP

Membership in the seminar is limited and by application only (see current list of members and their projects); the seminar also maintains a members-only listserv and a page of Resources for Biographers. For more information about the application process for seminar membership, contact Jill Norgren.

	2011-12 COMMITTEES
Steering Committee: Dona Munker (Acting Chair, 2011-2012) Kathy Chamberlain (on leave) Kate Culkin Dorothy O. Helly Barbara F. McManus (Web Manager) Jill Norgren Victoria C. Olsen Carla L. Peterson Sydney Ladensohn Stern (Treasurer) Nancy Rubin Stuart Suzanne Wasserman Archives Committee: Betty Boyd Caroli Norah Chase Dorothy O. Helly Victoria C. Olsen (Chair) Dee Shapiro Claire Morris Stern		Liaisons: CUNY Graduate Center: Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Rachel Brownstein Joseph S. Murphy Labor Institute: June Cumberbatch Outreach Committee: Sallie Bingham Norah Chase Kathryn Tripp Feldman Penne Franklin Sherry Gorelick Barbara Horn Jane Maher Sreca Perunovic Carla L. Peterson Jean Fagan Yellin