StoryDriven: Writing a Biography, Imagining a Life
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• StoryDriven blogs about the occasionally sublime, occasionally ridiculous journey of a writer who rashly set out to construct a work of pure nonfiction about the love affair of Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood. Also about the lessons this earnest pilgrim is learning in the course of her journey about writing and researching a biography, the rewards and perils of immersing oneself in other people's reality, and life in general.

For articles on this site about biography and the writing process, please scroll down.



     • 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.

         Also on this website: "Finding Our Voice," an account of writing an actual biographical narrative.


        BOOKS:



        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.


        DAUGHTER OF PERSIA. A Woman's Journey From Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Revolution.

        • "Lyrical and enchanting....Beautifully written." —The New York Times Book Review.


        Watch a video on "Imagining a Life in Biography."



        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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        Writing a Biography, Imagining a Life

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        Biography:
        The Story of SARA BARD FIELD and CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD
              SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE (in progress) is about a search for love that turned a Baptist minister's wife into a nationally known suffragist and women's rights advocate, a California poet, and an "anarchist and free-lover."
                Biographical Nonfiction:
                    DAUGHTER OF PERSIA
                      A timely, riveting account of the life and work of an extraordinary Iranian aristocrat and social reformer, Sattareh Farman Farmaian, DAUGHTER OF PERSIA is at once memoir and historical journalism. It opens a personal window on Iran and America's involvement in the six tumultuous decades that laid the foundations of the crisis facing the United States and the West today.
                            REVIEWERS on DAUGHTER OF PERSIA
                              What critics, Middle East experts, writers, and general readers have said about Daughter of Persia.
                                  A READER'S GUIDE to DAUGHTER OF PERSIA
                                    • Article: "Finding Our Voice."
                                      • Discovering the right literary "voice" for Daughter of Persia.
                                      • For Reading Groups:
                                          • A Writer's Perspective on Daughter of Persia Reading Group Questions.
                                            • Reading Recommendations. A personal selection.
                                            • LINKS and RECOMMENDATIONS
                                            Books and websites of related interest. • For first-time biographers: Helpful guides to writing a biography book proposal.