Dona Munker: Writing a Biography, Imagining a Life

PODCAST: Writer Dona Munker talks about Sattareh Farman Farmaian and Daughter of Persia

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BEHIND THE BOOKS
          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.
                                                • • Also:
                                                LINKS and RECOMMENDATIONS
                                                Books and websites of related interest. • For first-time biographers: Helpful guides to writing a biography book proposal.

                                                • I welcome comments and questions. To e-mail me, please use the form below.

                                                • 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.



                                                   • 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.


                                                      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. SARA AND ERSKINE is under contract to Doubleday.


                                                      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."