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Black and white headshot of author Amy Shearn

Amy Shearn

Amy Shearn is the author of the novels Unseen City (forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2020), The Mermaid of Brooklyn, and How Far Is the Ocean from Here, as well as the introduction to the novella The Little Bastard. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, Coastal Living, Poets & Writers, and on the websites Slate, Oprah, The Rumpus, The Millions, Electric Literature, Catapult, and elsewhere.

Shena Mcauliffe

The Wonderland Awaits: Researching The Good Echo

Author Shena McAuliffe describes how she used JSTOR to research her debut novel, The Good Echo.
Harriet Beecher Stowe George Eliot

When Harriet Beecher Stowe and George Eliot Were Penpals

These 19th-century novelists might seem to have little in common. But for 11 years they wrote each other letters, forging an unusual literary friendship.
Jessie Chaffee Florence in Ecstasy

Expecting the Unexpected: Researching Florence in Ecstasy

Debut novelist Jessie Chaffee on how she researched her critically-acclaimed new novel Florence in Ecstasy, with a little help from JSTOR.
WB Yeats

W.B. Yeats Loved Tarot Cards

The august Irish poet was once a member of a secret occult order called The Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn. He was also an avid student of the Tarot.
King Arthur Harry Potter

Harry Potter, the Arthurian Romance

Perhaps the Harry Potter stories are so potent because they rework the iconic hero stories of medieval French Arthurian romances.
Arif Anwar The Storm

The Bright Future of Bangladesh: Researching The Storm

An interview with Arif Anwar, whose debut novel covers sixty years of Bengali history in five love stories.
Clare Booth Luce

Clare Boothe Luce, the Conservative Politician Who Wrote an All-Female Play

Clare Boothe Luce was a socialite, an editor, a feminist playwright, a devout Roman Catholic, a Republican Congresswoman, an early LSD user, an ambassador, and, believe it or not, more.
Elise Hooper The Other Alcott

Discovering the Real Little Women: Researching The Other Alcott

Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" is a cultural touchstone. But what about the women behind the "Women," Alcott's real-life sisters on whom she based her characters? An interview with novelist Elise Hooper considers the life of "The Other Alcott."
Norma Jean the Termite Queen

A Forgotten Feminist Novel About the Creative Power of Rage

Remembering history helps us to parse the present, and it follows that women struggling to process these "decades of pent-up anger" can find apt reading material in the feminist fiction of the 1970s.
Christopher Robin

The Sad Story of A. A. Milne and the Real-Life Christopher Robin

The film Goodbye, Christopher Robin tells the story of how A. A. Milne’s popular children’s stories damaged his son, the real-life Christopher Robin.
First sentence

Female Inventive Talent

Brief commentary on one line from JSTOR: An unsigned editorial from an 1870s issue of Scientific American suggests that women can be great inventors, too.
Kadish book

Summoning 17th-Century Scholars: Researching The Weight of Ink

Author Rachel Kadish tells us about how she used JSTOR to research her fascinating, complex new novel, The Weight of Ink.
Hala Alyan Salt Houses

How to Recreate Palestine: Researching Salt Houses

Debut novelist Hala Alyan on how she researched her new, much-buzzed-about novel Salt Houses, with a little help from JSTOR.
Edith Wharton

Unearthing a Forgotten Edith Wharton Play

Before she created her masterpieces like The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton had a brief (unsuccessful) stint as a playwright.
Claire Cameron The Last Neanderthal

The Novelist’s Risk: Researching The Last Neanderthal

Best-selling Canadian novelist Claire Cameron on how she researched her new novel The Last Neanderthal, with a little help from JSTOR.
Anne of Green Gables Netflix

The Many Different Annes of Green Gables

Anne Shirley, created almost 100 years ago, has been reimagined countless times. Why do we still love Lucy Maud Montgomery's plucky orphan?
70s Little League Player

How Little League Prepares Kids for Work

Little League baseball as we know it is result of child development theory and practices in America's heartland in the years directly after World War II.
Illustration of Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O’Connor’s Moments of Grace

Flannery O'Connor employed grotesqueness and violence in her stories to illustrate the workings of grace on her characters.
1920s-era Remington Portable typewriter

The QWERTY Truth

How did the QWERTY keyboard became the gold standard? The answer is probably not what you'd think. Welcome to the economic concept of "path dependence."
Steel mill

Rebecca Harding Davis, American Realist

How do we record the voices of those who are silenced? We might do well to remember one of ...
Carrie Fisher and Wim Wenders

Carrie Fisher and Women’s Voices in Hollywood

Remembering Carrie Fisher: Actress, writer, and so much more.
American Girl Dolls

How American Girl Dolls Teach History (And Revolution)

Can purchasing a doll be a revolutionary act? The franchise makes an effort to connect its characters with the realities of American history.
Hogarth Press Vanessa Bell

In Praise of Small Presses

Writers have long run their own small presses in order to publish voices that might otherwise stay silent. 
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson and the Female Gothic

Critic Ruth Franklin has published a new biography on the criminally overlooked novelist, short story writer, and essayist Shirley Jackson.