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Behind the Books
Biography:
SARA BARD FIELD
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, a California poet, and an "anarchist and free-lover."
Excerpts from the working draft are posted in the StoryDriven.Net JOURNAL. (Temporarily offline .)
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 both memoir and historical journalism, opening 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.
Especially for biographers:
LINKS and RECOMMENDATIONS
Help me build a cache. Let me know about your favorite books on writing biography and any other websites you've found on writing biography or biographical nonfiction. Also on this page: Recommended guides for writing a biography book proposal.
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1. The NEWSLETTER and the JOURNAL:
The StoryDriven.Net NEWSLETTER: Imagining a Life and the Craft of Biography. Free e-mail newsletter focusing on the pleasures, challenges, and practical problems of imagining a life and writing narrative in biographical nonfiction. It often discusses a specific problem and solution suggested by a selection on the JOURNAL page. The NEWSLETTER also announces new JOURNAL postings. Go to the NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE or SUBSCRIBE.
The StoryDriven.Net JOURNAL: Excerpts from a Life of Sara Bard Field. (Temporarily offline.) Short selections from SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE, a biography in progress about the California poet, suffragist, and "free-lover," Sara Bard Field, a Baptist minister's wife who fell in love with the married attorney and philosophical anarchist, Charles Erskine Scott Wood. I am reconstructing Sara Bard Field's story from thousands of letters, as well as from her own massive oral autobiography.
VISITORS. Send feedback about the JOURNAL entry, writing or researching biography, or anything else on this website. Or E-MAIL ME.
ALSO:
"Finding Our Voice."© The process of creating a narrative voice for the book, DAUGHTER OF PERSIA.
Dona Munker. Professional interests and activities, plus information about a workshop on WRITING A BIOGRAPHY BOOK PROPOSAL. For more information, E-MAIL DONA MUNKER.
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Contact Me
(Back to top) SARA BARD FIELD
SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE (in progress). An authorized biography of SARA BARD FIELD that tells the story of the one-time Baptist minister's wife who, through love and her own determined will, forged herself into a modern woman with a career as a national suffragist, an admired California poet, and an "anarchist and free-lover."
Using oral history interviews and thousands of letters, SARA AND ERSKINE will reconstruct, in vivid detail, the emotional evolution of this fascinating woman and her long and celebrated love affair with the Oregon civil liberties attorney and writer CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD.
Excerpts from the working draft are posted in the StoryDriven.Net JOURNAL. (Temporarily offline.)
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DAUGHTER OF PERSIA
In a book that has often been described as "riveting," American writer Dona Munker, together with her subject and co-author, have told a unique life story: the dramatic career and pioneering achievements of an astonishing Iranian social reformer, Sattareh Farman Farmaian.
The product of a fortunate cross-cultural literary collaboration, DAUGHTER OF PERSIA: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem through the Islamic Revolution is both memoir and historical journalism: an imaginative yet faithful reconstruction of the life and times of one of the most remarkable women the Middle East has produced.
Timely and absorbing, DAUGHTER OF PERSIA 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.
To order DAUGHTER OF PERSIA, click on the cover image in the sidebar.
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REVIEWERS on DAUGHTER OF PERSIA
DAUGHTER OF PERSIA: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Revolution has been continuously in print in the United States and abroad since its publication in 1992, translated into five foreign languages, adopted by numerous book groups and college courses in the United States and Britain, and read by over a quarter of a million people worldwide. Read what book critics, Middle East experts, writers, and ordinary readers have to say about it.
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A READER'S GUIDE to DAUGHTER OF PERSIA
DAUGHTER OF PERSIA: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem through the Islamic Revolution is the product of an imaginative collaboration between Dona Munker, an American writer, and the remarkable Persian aristocrat and social reformer, Sattareh Farman Farmaian.
You can read about finding the right "voice" for DAUGHTER OF PERSIA in an article, "Finding Our Voice." Also check out: A Writer's Perspective on Daughter of Persia ( discussion questions for reading groups), as well as Reading Recommendations, personal suggestions for further reading about Sattareh's Iran and after.
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LINKS and RECOMMENDATIONS
Biographershelp me build a cache. Let me know your favorite books about writing biography and about other websites on writing biography or biographical nonfiction. Also on this page: Recommended guides for writing a biography book proposal.
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Picture Credits, this page:
Center column: Caravanserai, southern Iran, courtesy Marco Prins and Jona Lendering, www.livius.org Emperor Timur presenting gifts, Book of Kings (detail) courtesy UNESCO Women by M. A. Taraghijeh, reproduced by permission of M.A. Taraghijeh.
Sidebar: Author photo by Hiroko Yoshimoto 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.
This and other pages:
Typewriter by permission of Prof. Theodore Brown and the National Library of Medicine (also NEWSLETTER page) Book (JOURNAL page) courtesy of Critique Circle Water Lily by F. Eugene Hester, Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, US Department of Interior All other dingbats: Hiroko Yoshimoto.
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Notice of Copyright:
All material on this website copyright © 2005-2008 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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The StoryDriven.Net NEWSLETTER: Imagining a Life and the Craft of Biography is a resource for practicing biographers, journalists, students, teachers, researchers, and readers. It examines the pleasures, challenges, and problems of imagining a life and constructing a narrative in biography and biographical nonfiction. It can be read either by going to the NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE or by E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTION.
Getting the NEWSLETTER by e-mail is easy and free of charge. Just enter your e-mail address in the SIGNUP BOX on that page, activate the confirmation message you'll receive, and you're all set.
Each NEWSLETTER focuses on one facet of researching, envisioning, and writing biographical narrative, often through a discussion of the current entry in the StoryDriven.Net JOURNAL: Excerpts from a Life of Sara Bard Field (temporarily offline). The NEWSLETTER also announces new JOURNAL excerpts, which appear at intervals (i.e., as I have time to post them).
To see a list of archived articles, please go to the INDEX.
The StoryDriven.Net JOURNAL: Excerpts from a Life of Sara Bard Field. (Temporarily offline.)
Sara Bard Field with Charles Erskine Scott Wood in 1920, after their "free union" on San Francisco's Russian Hill. SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE, a biography of Sara Bard Field is under contract to Doubleday.
Excerpts from the working draft are posted in the the StoryDriven.Net JOURNAL. (Temporarily offline.)
"Lyrical and enchanting....Beautifully written." The New York Times Book Review.
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