Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Writing Women’s Biographies: Processes, Challenges, Rewards

2008; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wal.2008.0074

1948-7142

Mary Clearman Blew, Susanne George Bloomfield, Melody Graulich, Judy Nolte Temple,

American Literature and Culture

W r i t i n g W o m e n ’s B i o g r a p h i e s : P r o c e s s e s , C h a l l e n g e s , R e w a r d s M a r y C l e a r m a n B l e w S u s a n n e G e o r g e B l o o m f i e l d M e l o d y G r a u l i c h J u d y N o l t e T e m p l e A t the 2007 W LA Conference in Tacoma, the “Writing Women’s Biographies: Processes, Challenges, Rewards” panel had a large audi­ ence eager for more time for discussion. Since then, several audience participants have contacted Western American Literature to suggest a follow-up session at the 2008 Boulder Conference. Therefore WAL offers a transcript of the panel so we can take up where we left off. We have broadened the topic for 2008 to “Writing Biographies” and would like to discuss both genre and gender. We have invited some new par­ ticipants, but in the spirit of the conference theme, collaborations, the format of “Writing Biographies” will be primarily conversation rather than focused on the panelists. We ask for your input: Please send questions you would like dis­ cussed at “W riting Biographies” to melody.graulich@ usu.edu by Septem ber 20, 2008. P A R T IC IP A N T S Mary Clearman Blew grew up on a small cattle ranch in Montana, on the site of her great-grandfather’s 1882 homestead. Her memoir All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family (1991) won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. She has written other works using biographical mate­ rials, including Balsamroot: A Memoir of her aunt (2001) and, with Lee Rostad, Margaret Bell’s story When Montana and I Were Young: A Frontier Childhood (2002). A novel, Jackalope Dreams, appeared in 2008. Her awards include the Western Literature Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Idaho. Susanne George Bloomfield holds the Martin Distinguished Professor­ ship at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. The University of Nebraska Press has published her three biographies: The Adventures of the W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n l i t e r a t u r e 43.2 (S u m m e r 2008): 179-203 1 8 0 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e S u m m e r 2 0 0 8 Woman Homesteader: The Life and Letters of Elmore Pruitt Stewart (1992), Kate M. Cleary: A Literary Biography with Selected Works (1997), and Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peattie, A Journalist in the Gilded Age (2005). Her book on Cleary was a finalist for the 1998 Biography Award from the Society of Midland Authors as well as the winner of the 1998 Susan Koppelman Award given by the Woman’s Caucus of the Popular Culture Association, the American Culture Association, and the National Women’s Studies Association. Impertinences won two nonfiction awards in 2006: the W ILLA award from the Women Writing the West Association and the Nebraska Book Award. Susanne George Bloomfield was president of the Western Literature Association in 1996. Melody Graulich is co-author of Trading Gazes: Euro-American Women Photographers and Native North Americans, 1880-1940 (2003) (with Susan Bernardin, Lisa MacFarlane, and Nicole Tonkovich) and has written bio­ graphical essays on Mary Austin, Mary Hallock Foote, Eliza Calvert Hall, and others. She is the editor of Western American Literature. Judy Nolte Temple is a professor of women’s studies and English at the University of Arizona. Her first book, analyzing a thirty-year-long pio­ neer Iowa woman’s diary was “A Secret to be Burned” : The Diary and Life of Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1858-1888 (1989, under surname Lensink). She...