Dona Munker: Writing a Biography

~ Writing a Biography ~

STALKING THE ELEPHANT

A Blog About Writing Biography and Imagining a Life

AN INTRODUCTORY WORD ABOUT ELEPHANT-STALKING

May 15, 2011

Tags: Introduction, Sara Bard Field, Charles Erskine Scott Wood

Maurice Prendergast, Summer, New England, 1912. (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Let me say right away that this isn't a blog about hunting elephants. It's about writing biography, in this case a biography with the working title of Sara and Erskine, an American Romance. I don't believe in hunting elephants except with a camera, for cinematic or scientific purposes so I can watch them disporting Read More

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The disciple of a famous sculptor came upon his master carving an elephant from a huge, shapeless chunk of stone. "Master," cried the disciple, "What splendor! What realism! What insight! How do you do it?" "Simple," replied the sculptor. "You just cut away everything that isn't elephant."

Stalking the Elephant is a blog about creating an elephant from a chunk of stone, a.k.a. writing a biography.

It's also about the biographer's writing life (well, mine, anyway) and a work in progress, SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE. This is an intimate reconstruction of the life of SARA BARD FIELD, a World War One-era minister's wife, suffragist, and poet, and her extraordinary affair with an outspoken attorney, philosophical anarchist, and Renaissance man CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD.

Subscribing is easy.

This couple takes up a lot of time (not to mention a lot of oxygen), and since I don't have a regular posting schedule, the best way to receive updates is to sign up to be notified when I post something new.

Here's how: On the blog page, click on the RSS button of your browser. (In Firefox: Go to the Bookmarks menu and select "Subscribe to This Page.") You can then check to see if there's been an update in the RSS feed of your browser's toolbar.

Selected Works

IN PROGRESS

SARA AND ERSKINE, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE

is about a search for love and self-realization that turned a Baptist minister's wife into a nationally known suffragist, a women's rights advocate, and a respected California poet—but also into "an anarchist and a free-lover" who had to risk everything to be united with her remarkable soul-mate. I am tracing this forgotten, dramatic Ragtime-era romance and reconstructing Sara's life and experiences through thousands of letters, her's oral autobiography, and other sources.

More about writing SARA AND ERSKINE.

BIOGRAPHY

DAUGHTER OF PERSIA: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem through the Islamic Revolution

is a riveting account of the life and work of an extraordinary Iranian aristocrat and social reformer, Sattareh Farman Farmaian, DAUGHTER OF PERSIA is at once a memoir and a work of historical journalism that is still relevant today, opening a personal window on Iran and America's involvement in the six tumultuous decades that laid the foundations of the present-day crisis now facing the United States and the West.

ARTICLES

SPEAKING OF BIOGRAPHY

The biographer's craft, what a story is, whether biography can ever be an art, and more.

RESOURCES

LINKS, A BLOG ROLL, AND SOME HELPFUL BOOKS

A list of resources for anyone interested in biography and writing lives.

Dona Munker: Writing a Biography

~ Writing a Biography ~

STALKING THE ELEPHANT

A Blog About Writing Biography and Imagining a Life

AN INTRODUCTORY WORD ABOUT ELEPHANT-STALKING

Comments

ARCHIVES

TAGS

Selected Works

IN PROGRESS

BIOGRAPHY

ARTICLES

RESOURCES

~ Writing a Biography ~ STALKING THE ELEPHANT A Blog About Writing Biography and Imagining a Life

AN INTRODUCTORY WORD ABOUT ELEPHANT-STALKING

Comments

ARCHIVES

TAGS

Selected Works

~ Writing a Biography ~

STALKING THE ELEPHANT

A Blog About Writing Biography and Imagining a Life