Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's home in Amherst. Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even to leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most of her friendships were based entirely upon correspondence.
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson is a 1990 work about sexual decadence in Western literature and the visual arts by scholar Camille Paglia, in which she addresses major artists and writers such as Donatello, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Emily Brontë, and Oscar Wilde. Following Friedrich Nietzsche, Paglia argues that the primary conflict in Western culture is between the binary forces of the Apollonian and Dionysian, Apollo being associated with order, symmetry, culture, rationality, and sky, and Dionysus with disorder, chaos, nature, emotion, and earth. The book became a bestseller, received critical reviews from numerous feminist scholars, and was praised by numerous literary critics.
Toni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade, was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor.
Geraldyn M. Cobb , commonly known as Jerrie Cobb, was an American pilot and aviator. She was also part of the Mercury 13, a group of women who underwent physiological screening tests at the same time as the original Mercury Seven astronauts, and was the first to complete each of the tests.
The Mercury 13 were thirteen American women who took part in a privately funded program run by William Randolph Lovelace II aiming to test and screen women for spaceflight. The participants—First Lady Astronaut Trainees as Jerrie Cobb called them—successfully underwent the same physiological screening tests as had the astronauts selected by NASA on April 9, 1959, for Project Mercury. While Lovelace called the project Woman in Space Program, the thirteen women became later known as the Mercury 13—a term coined in 1995 by Hollywood producer James Cross as a comparison to the Mercury Seven astronauts. The Mercury 13 women were not part of NASA's official astronaut program, never flew in space as part of a NASA mission, and never met as a whole group.
Toni Stone, born as Marcenia Lyle Stone, was an American female professional baseball player who played in predominantly male leagues. In 1953, she became the first woman to play as a regular on an American major-level professional baseball team when she joined the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro leagues. A baseball player from her early childhood, she also played for the San Francisco Sea Lions, the New Orleans Creoles, the Indianapolis Clowns, and the Kansas City Monarchs before retiring from baseball in 1954. Stone was taunted at times by teammates, once being told, "Go home and fix your husband some biscuits", but she was undeterred. It has been widely reported that during an exhibition game in 1953, she hit a single off a fastball pitch delivered by legendary player Satchel Paige, although the claim has failed verification.
Mamie "Peanut" Johnson was an American professional baseball player who was one of three women, and the first female pitcher, to play in the Negro leagues.
Aileen Lucia Fisher was an American writer of more than a hundred children's books, including poetry, picture books in verse, prose about nature and America, biographies, Bible-themed books, plays, and articles for magazines and journals. Her poems have been anthologized many times and are frequently used in textbooks. In 1978 she was awarded the second National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Born in Michigan, Fisher moved to Colorado as an adult and lived there for the rest of her life.
Mabel Loomis Todd or Mabel Loomis was an American editor and writer. She is remembered as the editor of posthumously published editions of Emily Dickinson's poetry and letters and also wrote several novels and books about her travels with her husband, astronomer David Peck Todd, as well as co-authoring a textbook on astronomy.
Cristanne Miller received her PhD in 1980 from the University of Chicago, and was for many years the W.M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor at Pomona College. Since 2006 she has taught at the University at Buffalo in New York, where she is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Edward H. Butler Professor of English.
Camille Anna Paglia is an American academic, social critic and feminist. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern culture and is the author of Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990) and other books. She is also a critic of contemporary American feminism and of post-structuralism, as well as a commentator on multiple aspects of American culture such as its visual art, music, and film history.
Michael Bedard is a Canadian children's writer. He was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1971 with a BA in philosophy and English. He began writing when his former high school teacher showed him works of Emily Dickinson and T. S. Eliot. Bedard currently lives in Toronto with his wife Martha. He has four children and six grandchildren.
Brenda Wineapple is an American nonfiction writer, literary critic, and essayist who has written several books on nineteenth-century American writers.
Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson was an American writer, poet, traveler, and editor. She was the sister-in-law of poet Emily Dickinson.
A curveball is a type of pitch used in the sport of baseball.
Juan Francis Armenteros was a professional Cuban baseball player in the Negro leagues. He played as a catcher for a number of teams including the Kansas City Monarchs from 1953 to 1955 as well as the Havana Cubans from 1951 to 1953. Armenteros played in the 1953 East-West All-Star Game as well as the Negro leagues all-star team for three years.
Lisa Taddeo is an American author and journalist known for her book Three Women. Taddeo's work has appeared in The Best American Political Writing and The Best American Sports Writing anthologies.
Severance is a 2018 post-apocalyptic novel by Chinese-American author Ling Ma. It follows Candace Chen, an unfulfilled Bible product coordinator, before and after an incurable infection slowly obliterates global civilization. Severance explores themes of nostalgia, modern office culture, monotony, and intimate relationships. The novel, Ma's debut, won the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and was included on many prominent Best Books of 2018 lists.
Gene Nora Stumbough Jessen is an American aviator and a member of Mercury 13. Jessen worked throughout her career as a flight instructor, demonstration pilot, advisor to the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and president of the Ninety-Nines. Jessen has also written about flying and the history of women in flight. Together with Wally Funk, Jessen is one of the last two surviving members of Mercury 13.
