Elizabeth Winder (born 1981) is an American author and poet.
Winder grew up in the Queens Lake neighborhood of York County, Virginia. [1] She graduated from Bruton High School and the College of William and Mary and earned an MFA from George Mason University. [1] [2]
Winder has published a collection of poetry. [2] Her first novel, Pain, Parties and Work (2013) is a biography of Sylvia Plath. She relies on interviews with Plath's Mademoiselle colleagues to "paint a rather different image of Plath from the one most readers are familiar with". [3] The book is structured more like a magazine, with sidebars describing products and fashion from the time period, as well as excerpts from Plath's journals. [4]
Winder's 2017 book Marilyn in Manhattan [5] focused on 1955, with Newsday calling it "an approach that falls squarely within the popular subgenre of micro-biography". [6] The New York Times review said "rarely has a book about Marilyn Monroe been more maddening" [7] and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch review said the book's market might be "slender" and critiqued Winder's confusing use of first names only, [8] while Publishers Weekly called it a "captivating look" at Monroe's escape from Los Angeles. [9]
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death in 1963. The Collected Poems were published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.
Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, film-maker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least one in each of the seven decades after World War II—more than any other post-war American writer.
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef because the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression or bipolar II disorder. Plath died by suicide a month after its first United Kingdom publication. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, and her mother. The novel has been translated into nearly a dozen languages.
Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel was an American writer, journalist, and lawyer known for the confessional memoir Prozac Nation, which she published at the age of 27. Her work often focused on chronicling her personal struggles with depression, addiction, career, and relationships. Wurtzel's work drove a boom in confessional writing and the personal memoir genre during the 1990s, and she was viewed as a voice of Generation X. In later life, Wurtzel worked briefly as an attorney before her death from breast cancer.
Confessional poetry or "Confessionalism" is a style of poetry that emerged in the United States during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is sometimes also classified as a form of Postmodernism. It has been described as poetry of the personal or "I", focusing on extreme moments of individual experience, the psyche, and personal trauma, including previously and occasionally still taboo matters such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide, often set in relation to broader social themes.
The Seven Year Itch is a 1955 American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, from a screenplay he co-wrote with George Axelrod from the 1952 three-act play. The film stars Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, who reprised his role. It contains one of the most notable images of the 20th century – Monroe standing on a subway grate as her white dress is blown upwards by a passing train. The titular phrase, which refers to declining interest in a monogamous relationship after seven years of marriage, has been used by psychologists.
Florence Eldridge was an American actress. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1957 for her performance in Long Day's Journey into Night.
Erica Wagner is an American author and critic, living in London, England. She is former literary editor of The Times.
Diane Helen Wood Middlebrook was an American biographer, poet, and teacher. She taught feminist studies for many years at Stanford University. She is best known for critically acclaimed biographies of poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, and jazz musician Billy Tipton. Middlebrook was preparing a biography of the Roman poet Ovid, to be published in 2008. Her death brought that project to a close.
Anthony Bruce Summers is an Irish author. He is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and has written ten best-selling non-fiction books.
Jacqueline Rose, FBA is a British academic who is Professor of Humanities at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.
American actress Marilyn Monroe's life and persona have been depicted in film, television, music, the arts, and by other celebrities.
The Bell Jar is a 1979 American drama film based on Sylvia Plath's 1963 book The Bell Jar. It was directed by Larry Peerce, and stars Marilyn Hassett and Julie Harris. The story follows a young woman's summer in New York City working for a women's magazine, her return home to New England, and her subsequent psychological breakdown within the context of the difficulties of the 1950s—ranging from the Rosenbergs' execution, to the disturbing aspects of pop culture, to the distraction of predatory college boys.
My Week with Marilyn is a 2011 drama film directed by Simon Curtis and written by Adrian Hodges. It stars Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson, and Judi Dench. Based on two books by Colin Clark, it depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl, which starred Marilyn Monroe (Williams) and Laurence Olivier (Branagh). The film concerns the week during the shooting of the 1957 film when Monroe was escorted around London by Clark (Redmayne), after her husband Arthur Miller had returned to the United States.
Otto Emil Plath was a German American author, academic, and biologist. Plath worked as a professor of biology and German at Boston University, and as an entomologist, with a specific expertise on honey bees. He was the father of American poet Sylvia Plath, Warren Plath, and the husband of Aurelia Plath. He wrote the 1934 book, Bumblebees and Their Ways. He is notable for being the subject of one of his daughter's most well-known poems, "Daddy".
May Mann was a Hollywood columnist and freelance writer. She wrote a syndicated column about Hollywood gossip and wrote articles on celebrities for fan magazines. Her "Going Hollywood" column was syndicated to 400 newspapers, and contributed to movie magazines Movie Mirror, Silver Screen, Movie Teen, Screenland, and Photoplay. Her columns often featured photos of herself with the celebrity she profiled. She befriended several celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and wrote books about Elvis Presley, Clark Gable, and Jayne Mansfield. She was known as "Hollywood Date Girl" since she wrote about parties that she attended with Hollywood celebrities.
Barbara Leaming is an American biographer, whose subjects have included Roman Polanski, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
John Randall Anthony Taraborrelli is an American journalist and celebrity biographer. Taraborrelli is known for biographies of contemporary entertainers and political figures such as Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, Madonna, the Kennedy family, the Hilton family, and Beyoncé. He also regularly appears on television as an entertainment news reporter on programs such as Entertainment Tonight, Good Morning America, Today and CBS This Morning. Taraborrelli lives in Los Angeles.
Carl E. Rollyson is an American biographer and professor of journalism at Baruch College, City University of New York.