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Backstage : stories of a writing life / by Leon, Donna,author.;
"An engaging collection of stories and essays by the celebrated author of the internationally bestselling Guido Brunetti series, infused with her ever-present and delightful senses of humor and irony. Donna Leon's memoir, Wandering through Life, gave her legions of fans a colorful tour through her life, from childhood in New Jersey to adventures in China and Iran, to her love of Venice and opera. Nowhere, however, did she discuss her writing life. In Backstage, Donna reveals her admiration for, and inspiration from, the great crime novelists Ruth Rendell and Ross Macdonald, examining their approach to storytelling as she dissects her favorite books of theirs. She expresses her love for Charles Dickens's Great Expectations and her appreciation for Sir Walter Scott's generosity of spirit. And she chronicles the amount of research she undertakes to be able to present authentically, through Guido Brunetti and his colleagues, places and characters far from her own experience-from interviewing a diamond dealer in Venice to open up the world of blood diamonds, to meeting, through back channels, a courageous sex worker and women's rights activist to depict accurately the trafficking of women in Italy. By contrast, the idea and opening scene of one of her novels came to her as she was walking through Venice. Venice is central in her memory, whether recounting the semicomic irritation of a noisy elderly neighbor or the origins of the city's Carnevale. Her teaching career yields memorable tales: helping a young Black boy in a Newark, New Jersey, elementary school; instructing young Iranian pilots in English just before the 1979 Iranian Revolution; and taking her students at a Swiss private high school to the famous Frank Zappa concert in Montreux interrupted by fire. Throughout, she is as good a storyteller about herself as she is a chronicler of Guido Brunetti's crime adventures. Readers will be as caught up in her world as she is in his"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Anecdotes.; Personal narratives.; Leon, Donna; Leon, Donna; Detectives in literature.; Women authors; Women teachers; Women;

When I was eight / by Jordan-Fenton, Christy.; Grimard, Gabrielle.; Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun,1936-; Jordan-Fenton, Christy.Fatty legs.;
Olemaun is eight and knows a lot of things. But she does not know how to read. To learn, she must travel to school far from her Arctic home, ignoring her father's warnings.LSC
Subjects: Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun, 1936-; Inuit; Inuit women;
© c2013., Annick Press,

I used to live here once : the haunted life of Jean Rhys / by Seymour, Miranda,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Jean Rhys is one of the most compelling writers of the twentieth century. Memories of her Caribbean girlhood haunt the four short and piercingly brilliant novels that Rhys wrote during her extraordinary years as an exile in 1920s Paris and later in England, a body of fiction--above all, the extraordinary Wide Sargasso Sea--that has a passionate following today. And yet her own colorful life, including her early years on the Caribbean island of Dominica, remains too little explored, until now. In I Used to Live Here Once, Miranda Seymour sheds new light on the artist whose proud and fiercely solitary life profoundly informed her writing. Rhys experienced tragedy and extreme poverty, alcohol and drug dependency, romantic and sexual turmoil, all of which contributed to the "Rhys woman" of her oeuvre. Today, readers still intuitively relate to her unforgettable characters, vulnerable, watchful, and often alarmingly disaster-prone outsiders; women with a different way of moving through the world. And yet, while her works often contain autobiographical material, Rhys herself was never a victim. The figure who emerges for Seymour is cultured, self-mocking, unpredictable--and shockingly contemporary. Based on new research in the Caribbean, a wealth of never-before-seen papers, journals, letters, and photographs, and interviews with those who knew Rhys, I Used to Live Here Once is a luminous and penetrating portrait of a fascinatingly elusive artist"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Rhys, Jean.; Novelists, English; Women novelists, English; Caribbean literature (English); Dominica literature; English literature;

Hidden figures : the true story of four black women and the space race / by Lee Shetterly, Margot.; Conkling, Winifred.; Freeman, Laura(Illustrator);
LSC
Subjects: United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Women mathematicians; African American women; African American mathematicians; Space race;

The cemetery of untold stories : a novel / by Alvarez, Julia,author.;
"When celebrated writer Alma Cruz inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, she turns it into a place to bury her untold stories--literally. She creates a graveyard for manuscript drafts and revisions and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace, but they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives."--
Subjects: Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; Characters and characteristics in literature; Storytelling; Women authors;

Counting on Katherine / by Becker, Helaine,1961-; Phumiruk, Dow.;
Includes bibliographical references.A biography of Katherine Johnson, the African-American mathematician who worked for NASA and is depicted in the film Hidden figures.LSC
Subjects: Johnson, Katherine G.; United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Mathematicians; African American women mathematicians; African American women physicists; Women mathematicians; Women physicists;

Dorothy Parker in Hollywood / by Crowther, Gail,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From the author of Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz, comes a deep dive into Dorothy Parker's years in Hollywood: her work on numerous now-classic screenplays, including A Star is Born (1937), as well as the excesses, the alcoholism, her miscarriage, the suicide of her husband, her involvement with anti-fascist and anti-racist groups that led to her ultimate blacklisting, and her early involvement in the civil rights movement that ultimately lead her to leaving her entire estate to the NAACP"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Parker, Dorothy, 1893-1967.; Authors, American; Screenwriters; Women and literature;

My life in Middlemarch / by Mead, Rebecca.;
Includes bibliographical references.In this memoir, journalist and New Yorker staff writer Rebecca Mead, draws out the intricate ways in which the themes of George Eliot's Middlemarch -- "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," according to Virginia Woolf -- have run through her own life. Mead also draws an uncanny portrait of the ways in which Eliots's life resonates with her own through a fascinating reading of Eliot's biography. For those who wonder about the power of literature to shape our lives, this book is a must-read.LSC
Subjects: Mead, Rebecca; Eliot, George, 1819-1880.; Eliot, George, 1819-1880; Women and literature; Women novelists, English; Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.);
© c2014., Bond Street Books,

Not my girl / by Jordan-Fenton, Christy.; Grimard, Gabrielle.; Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun,1936-;
When Olemaun returns to her Arctic home, she must relearn her people's ways and find her place once more.LSC
Subjects: Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun, 1936-; Inuit; Inuit; Inuit women; Residential schools;
© c2014., Annick Press,

The breadwinner : a graphic novel / by Tanaka, Shelley.; Doron, Anita.; Twomey, Nora.; Ellis, Deborah,1960-Breadwinner.;
"This beautiful graphic-novel adaptation of The Breadwinner animated film tells the story of eleven-year-old Parvana who must disguise herself as a boy to support her family during the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan. Deborah Ellis's beloved novel has been adapted for film by Aircraft Pictures, Cartoon Saloon and Melusine Productions in association with Angelina Jolie's production company, jolie pas productions."--Provided by publisher.LSC
Subjects: Graphic novels.; Taliban; Girls; Sex role; Women's rights; Women;

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