Laura Anne Kalpakian (born June 28, 1945) [1] is an American author. She has also published under the pen names Juliet Fitzgerald [2] and Carenna Jane Greye. She is known for her work in the memoir genre.
Kalpakian was born in Long Beach, California, the daughter of Peggy (Kalpakian), a secretary, and William Johnson, a technical representative. [3] [4] She grew up in southern California. She earned her undergraduate degree from University of California, Riverside in 1967. After starting her career as a social worker, she earned a master's degree from the University of Delaware in 1970. She earned a Ph.D. in literature from the University of California, San Diego in 1977.
She has received funding from the National Endowment of the Arts and has won a Pushcart Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and the first Anahid Literary Award for an American writer of Armenian descent. [5] [6]
Kalpakian's 1992 novel Graced Land was adapted into the TV movie The Woman Who Loved Elvis , directed by Bill Bixby and starring Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold. [7]
Her sons are composer Bear McCreary and singer/musician Brendan McCreary.
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English writer of romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter", later set by Gustav Holst, Katherine Kennicott Davis, and Harold Darke, and "Love Came Down at Christmas", also set by Darke and other composers. She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and features in several of his paintings.
Mary Ann Mobley was an American actress, television personality, and Miss America 1959.
Fanny Howe is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Howe has written more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Her major works include poetry such as One Crossed Out, Gone, and Second Childhood; the novels Nod, The Deep North, and Indivisible; and collected essays such as The Wedding Dress: Meditations on Word and Life and The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation.
Laura San Giacomo is an American actress. She played Cynthia in the film Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) for which she won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female, Kit De Luca in the film Pretty Woman (1990), Crazy Cora in the film Quigley Down Under (1990), Nadine Cross in The Stand (1994), and Maya Gallo on the sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997–2003). A BAFTA and two-time Golden Globe Award nominee, she played the regular role of Rhetta Rodriguez on the drama Saving Grace (2007–2010), and the recurring role of Dr. Grace Confalone on the drama NCIS (2016–2022).
Barbara Eden is an American actress and singer, who starred as the title character in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970). Her other roles included Roslyn Pierce opposite Elvis Presley in Flaming Star (1960), Lieutenant (JG) Cathy Connors in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), and a single widowed mother, Stella Johnson, in the comedy film Harper Valley PTA (1978) and in the television series of the same name.
Martha Grimes is an American writer of detective fiction. She is best known for a series featuring Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard inspector, and Melrose Plant, an aristocrat turned amateur sleuth.
Caitlin Davies is an English author, historian, journalist and teacher. She has written several books about social history and women's history. Her historical works have focused on swimmers, female prisoners, female criminals, and female private investigators.
Frances Lee McCain is an American actress.
Tracy K. Smith is an American poet and educator. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She has published five collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015.
Kim Edwards is an American author and educator. She was born in Killeen, Texas, grew up in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, and graduated from Colgate University and The University of Iowa, where she earned an MFA in fiction and an MA in linguistics. She is the author of a story collection, The Secrets of a Fire King, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; her stories have been published in The Paris Review, Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and many other periodicals. She has received many awards for the short story as well, including a Pushcart Prize, the National Magazine Award, the Nelson Algren Award, and inclusion in both The Best American Short Stories and the Symphony Space program 'Selected Shorts'. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, as well as grants from the Pennsylvania and Kentucky Arts Councils, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Carol Muske-Dukes is an American poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and professor, and the former poet laureate of California (2008–2011). Her most recent book of poetry, Sparrow, chronicling the love and loss of Muske-Dukes’ late husband, actor David Dukes, was a National Book Award finalist.
Lisa Marie Presley was an American singer and songwriter. She was the only child of singer and actor Elvis Presley and actress Priscilla Presley, as well as the sole heir to her father's estate after her grandfather and her great-grandmother died. Her musical career consisted of three studio albums: To Whom It May Concern (2003), Now What (2005) and Storm & Grace (2012), with To Whom It May Concern being certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. Presley also released non-album singles, including duets with her father using archival recordings.
Carmen Giménez, formerly known as Carmen Giménez Smith, is an American poet, writer, and editor.
Carol Lee Flinders is a writer, independent scholar, educator, speaker, and former syndicated columnist. She is best known as one of the three authors of Laurel's Kitchen along with Laurel Robertson and Bronwen Godfrey. She is also the co- author of The Making of a Teacher with Tim Flinders.
Suzanne Jill Levine is an American writer, poet, literary translator and scholar.
Nellie Blessing Eyster was an American journalist, writer, lecturer, and social reformer. She was a grand-niece of Barbara Fritchie.
Tara Westover is an American memoirist, essayist and historian. Her memoir Educated (2018) debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list and was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the LA Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award. The New York Times ranked Educated as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018. Westover was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019.
Know My Name: A Memoir is a 2019 memoir by American author Chanel Miller. In it, Miller writes about her experience being sexually assaulted by then Stanford University athlete Brock Turner in January 2015, as well as the aftermath and subsequent court case People v. Turner.
Joan Trodden Keefe was an Irish poet, translator, and scholar.
Karen Harriet Brodine was an American poet, dancer, educator, writer, activist, and typesetter, based in San Francisco and Seattle.