Sunday, October 20, 2024

Eight biographies to upend your perception of famous writers

Iris Jamahl Dunkle is an Emerita Poet Laureate of Sonoma County and a faculty member at UC Davis. She has authored two biographies: Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (2020) and Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (2024). Her fourth poetry collection, West : Fire : Archive, was recently published by The Center for Literary Publishing. Dunkle writes a weekly blog called Finding Lost Voices, which revives the voices of women who have been forgotten or misremembered and serves as the Poetry and Translation Director at the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. She’s on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.

At Electric Lit Dunkle tagged eight books in which "you’ll find a different take on literary history, where you’ll not only see the literary elite you thought you knew differently, but you’ll also discover new figures." One title on the list:
A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson by Camille Peri

In this new biography about Robert Lewis Stevenson and his wife Fanny Van de Grift by Camille Peri, we get to know the woman who helped shape one of the world’s most beloved writers. We learn that Fanny was a tomboy who after leaving her home Indiana for the Silver mine boom towns in Nevada, traveled to Europe with her daughter and two sons to escape her cheating husband. It was at an artist retreat in France in 1876 that Fanny and Robert first met. A meeting that according to Peri fueled both of their lives and sent the two on adventures around the world. Fanny, who was also a writer, short stories and colorful accounts about their life together, even contributed to helping her husband write the novels he is famous for. It’s about time that someone took on telling the story of this unique, and powerful literary partnership.
Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue