Dona Munker: Writing a Biography
~ Writing a Biography ~
IN PROGRESS
SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE
SARA AND ERSKINE is the story of SARA BARD FIELD a Baptist minister's wife who, through an adulterous love affair with the liberal Oregon attorney, writer, and atheist CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD, became a nationally-known suffrage orator, an admired California poet, and an "anarchist and free-lover" who risked everything to be with her remarkable soul-mate. It reconstructs their epic romance and Sara's transformation into a modern woman by correlating and interpreting information gleaned from thousands of letters, from oral history interviews, and from newspaper accounts. Click on the link above to read more about their story and how I came across it. Click here to go to "STALKING THE ELEPHANT," my blog about writing biography and this book. BIOGRAPHY 
DAUGHTER OF PERSIA: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem through the Islamic Revolution
In DAUGHTER OF PERSIA: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem to the Islamic Revolution, American writer Dona Munker gives Western readers a riveting first-person account of the extraordinary life of Sattareh Farman Farmaian, an Iranian aristocrat who grew up in a prince's harem compound, studied in America, and brought social work and modern birth control to Iran, only to see everything she had fought for destroyed by the religious revolution that overthrew the Shah. The product of a unique cross-cultural literary collaboration, DAUGHTER OF PERSIA is at once a poignant memoir and a riveting piece of historical journalism that brings half a century of Iranian history alive for Western readers and offers them first-hand insight into how America "lost" Iran. "A phenomenal read....An important book, both for its history and its life-story." — 500 Great Books by Women, by Erica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen, and Holly Smith. 
ARTICLES, ETC.
SPEAKING OF BIOGRAPHY: ARTICLES
Articles on the biographer's craft, what a story is, whether biography can ever be an art, and more. Also a PODCAST on DAUGHTER OF PERSIA LINKS, A BLOG ROLL, AND SOME HELPFUL BOOKS
Take advantage of a growing list of resources for writers, biographers, readers, students and teachers, and anyone else interested in writing lives. 
AND DON'T FORGET ANOTHER HUGE RESOURCE, STALKING THE ELEPHANT, a blog about writing biography, the writing life, the creative processes of biography, and of course SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE, my work in progress on the World War One-era minister's wife and suffragist, Sara Bard Field, and her extraordinary affair with the outspoken atheist and philosophical anarchist, Charles Erskine Scott Wood.
Picture Credits:
• Detail from 1920 photograph of 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. Notice of Copyright: • All material on this website Copyright © 2005-2011 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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