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Dona Munker, who wrote DAUGHTER OF PERSIA in collaboration with its subject and co-author, Sattareh Farman Farmaian, is a writer and freelance editor with a special interest in the role of imagination and narrative craft in biography and biographical nonfiction.
She maintains WRITING A BIOGRAPHY, IMAGINING A LIFE as a personal and professional website for professional biographers and other nonfiction writers, academic researchers, and students and teachers of advanced nonfiction writing, as well as for general readers interested in the creative process of constructing a biographical narrative.
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Her articles on this website from her Newsletter, "Imagining a Life and the Craft of Biographym," archives articles about writing biographical narrative and provides a resource for writers and readers of biography and biographical nonfiction. (Temporarily Offline.)
• For information about her workshop, "WRITING A BIOGRAPHY BOOK PROPOSAL," click here.
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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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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 © 2005-2009 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.
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• This website is about what goes into telling the story of someone else's life—that is, it's about writing a biography, though not necessarily the traditional kind.
I'm currently revising these pages to include a blog called "StoryDriven," where I'll be considering many different aspects—personal as well as professional—of the experience, the process, and the significance of writing and thinking deeply about the story of another person's life.
I'll let visitors know when StoryDriven goes online. If you'd like to be notified, please enter your e-mail address in the SIGNUP BOX in the sidebar of the "Articles" page, then click on the automatic confirmation link that arrives in your e-mail.
Workshop: "WRITING A BIOGRAPHY BOOK PROPOSAL."
•This one-day workshop is for professional writers, students of advanced nonfiction writing, and others who are considering publishing a biography or serious work of biographical nonfiction.
Participants are asked to bring the first two pages (only) of a biography or work of biographical nonfiction they are writing or plan to write, to be evaluated by me and fellow participants for coherence, persuasiveness, and the ability to engage a reader in the narrative. The workshop includes suggestions on writing an effective book proposal and reading recommendations.
For more information, E-MAIL ME.
• My articles from NEWSLETTER: IMAGINING A LIFE AND THE CRAFT OF BIOGRAPHY are a resource for practicing biographers, journalists, students, teachers, researchers, and readers. They examine the pleasures, challenges, and problems of imagining a life and constructing a narrative in biography and biographical nonfiction.
You can read these articles by going to the ARCHIVE in the sidebar.
Also on this website: "Finding Our Voice," an account of writing an actual biographical narrative.
 Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood in 1920, after their "free union" on San Francisco's Russian Hill. I am reconstructing their lives and their extraordinary May-December love affair in SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE, which is also a biography of Sara Bard Field. SARA AND ERSKINE is under contract to Doubleday. • "Lyrical and enchanting....Beautifully written." --The New York Times Book Review.
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