Biographies of Women

About 15 months ago, I wrote a blog post about my pandemic project of listening to biographies of creative women. I have continued listening to biographies (and memoirs in some cases) of interesting women. Here’s an updated list of women I have learned about.
- May Sarton: a biography by Margot Peters
- James Tiptree, Jr. : The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
- Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer by Arthur Lubow
- Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon
- The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography by Hilary Holladay
- Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy by Leslie Brody
- Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern by Francine Prose
- Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe by Laurie Lisle
- Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
- Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark
- Make Trouble by Cecile Richards
- In Pieces by Sally Field
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
- Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
- Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller
- Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton
- How I Became a Writer by Gloria Steinem
- The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s by Maggie Doherty (about Anne Sexton, Maxine Kumin, Barbara Swan, Mariana Pineda, and Tillie Olson)
- Blue Territory: A Meditation on the Life and Art of Joan Mitchell by Tandy Cronyn
- Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade (about Hilda Doolittle, Dorothy Sayers, Jane Harrison, Eileen Power, and Virginia Woolf)
- Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry
- Sybille Bedford: A Life by Selina Hastings
- Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop by Thomas Travisano
- Dark Star: A Biography of Vivien Leigh by Alan Strachan
- Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement that Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel
- A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia Butler by Lynell George
- Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis
- If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth by Barbara Leaming
- Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther
- Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995 by Patricia Highsmith and Anna von Planta
- Marlene Dietrich: The Life by Maria Riva
- Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
- Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby
- Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand by William J. Mann
- Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer (about Babe Paley, Gloria Guiness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C.Z. Guest, and Lee Radziwell)
- Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
Image Credit: Shadow Angel taken by me on August 24, 2019