Dona Munker
WRITING BIOGRAPHY
and Biographical Nonfiction

ABOUT DONA MUNKER

   • I was born in Los Angeles, raised in Pasadena, California, and now live in New York City, going to California regularly to research my biography of SARA BARD FIELD.

   I originally planned on becoming a college English teacher, but became an editor after realizing that I preferred working directly with writers.

   I have a BA in theater arts from the University of Southern California, an MA in English (fiction writing) from Indiana University, and a doctorate in English from New York University. I taught university-level English in Europe and at Hunter College in New York, then went into trade (general interest) book publishing, working as a trade editor at Little, Brown & Co. and Arbor House (Hearst Books), and for Time-Life Books as a trade consultant and freelance editor. Just before embarking on DAUGHTER OF PERSIA with Sattareh Farman-Farmaian, I published a very short paperback called HOW TO WEAR HATS WITH STYLE, a book about how to wear hats with style.

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   • PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES: I have written reviews and articles for the New York Times Book Review, Publisher's Weekly, and scholarly and literary publications and have conducted workshops on writing and publishing at New York University and the New School University. I guest lecture regularly in publishing classes at the City College of New York.

   I am a co-founder of Women in Publishing, an organization for trade editors and literary agents, and a founding member of The Women Writing Women's Lives Seminar, an independent discussion group of women biographers started in 1990 by Deirdre Bair and the late Carolyn Heilbrun that meets at the City University of New York Graduate Center for the Humanities under the aegis of the university's Center for the Humanities and the Center for the Study of Women and Society. I am a member of the Authors Guild, the Women's National Book Association, and the National Coalition of Independent Scholars.

   • APPEARANCES AT WORKSHOPS, CLASSES, and READING GROUPS: I enjoy speaking about what I do to students, reading groups, and writers' workshops. I also offer a one-day practical WORKSHOP, "WRITING A BIOGRAPHY BOOK PROPOSAL." For additional information, please E-MAIL ME.

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About WRITING BIOGRAPHY on StoryDriven.net:

   • The StoryDriven.Net NEWSLETTER: IMAGINING A LIFE AND THE CRAFT OF BIOGRAPHY. Free e-mail newsletter focusing on the pleasures, challenges, and practical problems of imagining a life and writing narrative in biographical nonfiction. It often discusses a specific problem and solution suggested by a selection on the JOURNAL page. The NEWSLETTER also announces new JOURNAL postings. Go to the NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE or SUBSCRIBE.

   • The StoryDriven.Net JOURNAL: Excerpts from a Life of Sara Bard Field. (Temporarily offline.) Short selections from SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE, a biography in progress about the California poet, suffragist, and "free-lover," Sara Bard Field, a Baptist minister's wife who fell in love with the married attorney and philosophical anarchist, Charles Erskine Scott Wood. I am reconstructing Sara Bard Field's story from thousands of letters, as well as from her own massive oral autobiography.

   • VISITORS. Send feedback about the JOURNAL entry, writing or researching biography, or anything else on this website. Or E-MAIL ME.

ALSO:
    • "Finding Our Voice."© The process of creating a narrative voice for the book, DAUGHTER OF PERSIA.
    • Dona Munker. Professional interests and activities, plus information about a workshop on WRITING A BIOGRAPHY BOOK PROPOSAL. For more information, E-MAIL DONA MUNKER.
   • LINKS and RECOMMENDATIONS. Websites of interest for biographers; useful books.
    • Site Map
    • Contact Me

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Picture credits:

    • Center column: Author photo by Hiroko Yoshimoto. • Sidebar: Sara Bard Field and C.E.S. Wood by W. E. Dassonville; reproduced with permission of the Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley.

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Notice of Copyright:

    • All material on this website copyright © 2005-2008 by Dona Munker, except where expressly stated or contributed by others. Copying, altering, or reproducing this material in any form without written permission is prohibited by law and may be prosecuted regardless of the venue or purpose of the copying.