StoryDriven: Writing a Biography, Imagining a Life

     • 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.



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

        BOOKS:



        Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood in 1920, after their "free union" on San Francisco's Russian Hill. I am reconstructing Sara Bard Field's life and their extraordinary May-December love affair in SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE.


        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.

          VISITORS
          ~ StoryDriven ~
          Writing a Biography, Imagining a Life


             The Visitors Page is no longer being updated because the website is currently undergoing revisions, including a blog called "StoryDriven." I will e-mail subscribers when this is online.

             Meanwhile, I still love hearing from visitors. Please use my CONTACT PAGE to e-mail me.

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          Picture Credits:

          • Center column: "Dumbbell Nebula" courtesy NASA Photojournal • • Sidebar (and detail, center column): 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. • Author photo by Hiroko Yoshimoto.

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          Notice of Copyright:

              • All material on this website Copyright © 2005-2010 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.

          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.