What’s not to love about a feisty, red-lipped, red-haired poet sporting a new pair of dancing shoes? Nothing, I say! Especially when she is as financially successful as Edna St. Vincent Millay. I first discovered Edna St. Vincent Millay in a collection of poetry that had her famous poem “Renascence”, a poem she finished when she was 20. It has remained one of my favorites and enticed me to explore more of her work when I was also in my twenties, but I didn’t enjoy her other work quite as much. Edna, called Vincent by her family, was a child of divorce and was raised by her mom. Encouraged to explore the arts, she managed to learn six languages, and study theater and…Read More

When I first read The Color Purple, it pained me emotionally. I didn’t think I would get through it but I could stop reading. The opening, the lives of black women, and the abuse and torture that the characters endured seemed impossible to overcome. Reading it, I understand why Alice Walker once said, “The black woman is one of America’s greatest heroes.” But if ever there was a heroine you cheered for, it was Celie. And when she loved, and hoped, and finally achieved – it was righteous! The reunion at the end of The Color Purple still makes me tear up. In addition to being a writer of poetry, novels, non-fiction, short stories and essays, Alice Walker is known…Read More