Writing

Books

  • Sweet Mystery: A Book of Remembering

    Sweet Mystery: A Book of Remembering

    • 1996, 1997, 2001, 2019
    • Farrar, Strauss & Giroux; Noonday Press; University of Alabama Press
    • Hardcover, Paperback, eBook
    • More details
  • Be Somebody: A Biography of Marguerite Rawalt

    Be Somebody

  • Philip Roth

    Philip Roth

    • 1981
    • Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.
    • Hardcover, Paperback
    • More details
  • Thomas More

    Thomas More

Reprintings and Contributions in Books

"The Gift Twice Given"
What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most, ed. Elizabeth Benedict
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013
Where to buy
"Coming Home"
The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers, ed. Jay Lamar and Jeanie Thompson
Deep South Books/University of Alabama Press, 2002
Where to buy
"Esther Peterson"
The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia, ed. Maurine H. Beasley, Holly C. Shulman, and Henry R. Beasley
Greenwood Press, 2001
"Before Montgomery Was a Place" and "Why Not Be a Teacher"
Alabama Now and Then, a Contemporary Look, ed. Don B. Dodd
The Montgomery Advertiser Company, 1994
"Let the Dying Die Gracefully" and "The Modern Way of Dying"
The Writer's Audience: A Reader for Composition, Nancy G. Anderson
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1991
Excerpt from Thomas More
The Critical Temper: A Survey of Modern Criticism on English and American Literature, ed. Martin Tucker
Continuum, 1989
"Gayl Jones"
The Encyclopedia of American Women Writers, Vol II
Ungar, 1982
"Phyllis Chesler," "Eleanor Clark," "Elizabeth Gould Davis"
The Encyclopedia of American Women Writers, Vol I
Ungar, 1979
"Thomas More's Feminism: To Reform or Re-Form"
Albion: Quincentennial Essays on St. Thomas More, 1979
"Plato's 'Philebus' and Utopian Hedonism"
Moreana, 1979

Featured Articles

"In Daddy's Eyes"
Mobile Register
June 16, 1996
"To Teach the Negro"
Alabama Heritage
Spring 1996
"How Life is Very Mixed Up in the South"
Interview plus excerpt from Sweet Mystery
First Draft
Fall 1995
"Step Dance"
Chicago Tribune
December 17, 1989
"Where is the War Against the Legal Drug Alcohol?"
Los Angeles Times
May 18, 1988
"Montgomery Libraries Opened Entrancing World"
Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal
April 24, 1988
"Let the Dying Die Gracefully"
Montgomery Advertiser
March 17, 1988
"Death is not a Disease"
Los Angeles Times
November 27, 1987

Articles and Reviews in Refereed Journals

A review of Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington
Amaryllis
Spring, 1995
"Harriet Monroe" in Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Magazine Journalists, 1900-1960, ed. Sam Riley
1990
A review of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Media by Maurine Beasley
Journal of American History
Fall, 1988
"Shifting Modes and Plural Vision: The Modernity of Thomas More's 'History of Richard III'"
Indiana Social Science Quarterly
Spring, 1982
Winner of the Novus Award for Social History
"Thy Grace to Set the World at Nought: Mysticism in the Works of St. Thomas More"
Studia Mystica
Summer, 1980
A review of The Apology: The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Vol. IX, ed. J. B. Trapp
Southern Humanities Review, vol. 14
Summer, 1980
"'On the Air,'" Notes in Contemporary Literature, co-authored with Ernest L. Weiser
1981
"Recent Studies in Thomas More, Bibliographical Essay"
English Literary Renaissance
Autumn, 1979
"Doing Away with Daddy: Exorcism and Sympathetic Magic in Sylvia Plath's Poetry"
Concerning Poetry
1978
"The Structure of Thomas More's 'Dialogue of Comfort'"
Selected Papers/Shakespeare Society of West Virginia
1978

Book Reviews

I am not Sick, I Don't Need Help! Helping the Seriously Mentally Ill Accept Treatment: A Practical Guide for Families and Therapists, by Xavier Amador
Advocate: Journal of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
Winter, 2001
Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Redfield Jamison
Advocate: Journal of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
Vol. 21, No. 3
December, 1999/January, 2000
Cleaving: The Story of a Marriage, by Dennis and Vicki Covington
First Draft: a Journal of the Alabama Writers' Forum
Vol. 6, No. 2
Summer 1999
Mays' Power in the Blood: Land, Memory, and a Southern Family, by John Bentley
The Alabama Review: A quarterly Journal of Alabama History
Vol. 52, No. 3
July, 1999
Low Flying Aircraft, by T. M. McNally
The New York Times
September 20, 1992
Looking for the Light: The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott, by Paul Hendrickson
The Washington Journalism Review: "A Brief, Brilliant Career Capturing America"
September, 1992
Patchwork, by Karen Osborn
The New York Times: "A Lifetime of Rebellion"
August 25, 1991
Passion and Prejudice: A Family Tragedy, by Sallie Bingham
St. Petersburg Times
"Family Memoir,' A Personal Anthology of Misery"
Atlanta Constitution
March 19, 1989
"Labors of Love and Loss"
Washington Post Book World
February 5, 1989
The Sisterhood: The True Story of the Women Who Changed the World, by Marcia Cohen
"Gossip Overshadows Facts in 'Sisterhood'"
Atlanta Journal Constitution
November 27, 1988
"Southern Women," a review of Southern Women, by Caroline Matheny Dillman
Atlanta Journal Constitution
October 30, 1988
"Philip Roth's 'Novelist's Autobiography' Blurs Fact and Fiction," a review of The Facts, by Philip Roth
Atlanta Journal Constitution
October 2, 1988
Capote: A Biography, by Gerald Clarke
"Biography charts Truman Capote's self-destruction"
Atlanta Journal Constitution
June 19, 1988
"Suicide by the knife of vindication"
Baltimore Evening Sun
July 18, 1988
Living by the Word, by Alice Walker
"Alice Walker's heart speaks in 'Living by the Word,'"
Atlanta Journal Constitution
June 26, 1988
"The abiding spiritual obsessions of novelist Alice Walker"
Chicago Tribune
July 17, 1988
"Salvaging the spirit, salvaging the planet"
Baltimore Sun
August 1, 1988
"Southern Discomforts"
Washington Post Book World
July 10, 1988
Second Chances, by Alice Adam
"Never Too Late"
San Jose Mercury News
May 8, 1988
Oscar Wilde, by Richard Ellman
"The Man who invented his own myth"
Baltimore Evening Sun
March 21, 1988
Zions Cause (1920-1950), by Jim Peyton
"Human Comedy, Cont'd"
Washington Post
January 21, 1988
Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life by Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and Getting Better All the Time by Liz Carpenter
"3 old pros still running"
Baltimore Evening Sun
September 21, 1987
Song in a Weary Throat, by Pauli Murray
"A Life of Breaking Barriers"
St. Petersburg Times
May 31, 1987
"On the road for Human Rights"
Texas Observer
June 12, 1987
"A tireless struggle for civil rights"
Baltimore Evening Sun
June 29, 1987
Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society, by Daniel Callahan
"The Modern Way of Dying"
Texas Observer
November 20,1987
"On growing old in America"
St. Petersburg Times
November 22, 1987
"Facing up to death in a society that denies it"
Baltimore Evening Sun
December 7, 1987
Mr. Justice and Mrs. Black: The Memoirs of Hugo L. Black and Elizabeth Black, by Elizabeth Black
"Hugo Black: A very private portrait"
Baltimore Evening Sun
July 21, 1986
Outside the Magic Circle, by Virginia Durr
"Virginia Durr's Good Fight"
Texas Observer
December 6, 1985
The Return of the Goddess, by Edward C. Whitmont
"New Woman"
The Washington Book Review
Spring/Summer, 1983
The Life of Katherine Mansfield, by Antony Alpers
"Biography reveals paradoxical Mansfield"
Montgomery Advertiser-Journal
July 20, 1980
Life Before Man, by Margaret Atwood
"Book abrasive, beautiful, bleak"
Montgomery Advertiser-Journal
April 20, 1980
The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, by Roland Barthes
"French intellectual finds mass culture decadent"
March 2, 1980
The Obstacle Race, by Germaine Greer
"Analytical shallowness mars useful book"
Montgomery Advertiser-Journal
February 3, 1980

Articles and Essays in Newspapers and Magazines

"In Daddy's Eyes"
Mobile Register
June 16, 1996
"Memories"
"Private Lives" Column
St. Petersburg Times
June 12, 1996
"To Teach the Negro"
Alabama Heritage
Spring 1996
"How Life is Very Mixed Up in the South"
Interview plus excerpt from Sweet Mystery
First Draft
Vol. 3, No. 3
Fall 1995
"Home Away From Home
SHCJ Voices
October 1995
"The Ten Best Books of Social Concern by Journalists"
American Journalism Review
September 1994
"The Ten Best Autobiographies of Journalists"
American Journalism Review
April 1993
"Literary Journalism's Twelve Best"
Washington Journalism Review
October, 1992
"Foreign Correspondents' Top Ten" (Co-authored with John Maxwell Hamilton)
Washington Journalism Review
July/August, 1992
"Step Dance" (Reprint)
Chicago Tribune
December 17, 1989
"Bennett Boot Camp Plan is 'Twelve Steps' Short" (Reprint)
Atlanta Constitution
June 6, 1989
"Look under your nose, Mr. Bennett"
Chicago Tribune
May 26, 1989
"Rape in Atlanta: Challenging the South's Long-Held Social Beliefs"
Atlanta Journal Constitution
October 8, 1988
"Avoid the Rush; Amble Through Summer to Fall" (Reprint)
Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal
August 14, 1988
"How do you Spell Relief from Swelter: A-M-B-L-E"
Atlanta Journal Constitution
July 31, 1988
"Rivals No More"
Baltimore Sun Magazine
June 19, 1988
"Where is the War against the Legal Drug Alcohol?"
Los Angeles Times
May 18, 1988
"A library-lover looks back" (Reprint)
St. Petersburg Times
May 15, 1988
"Tug of War"
Baltimore Sun Magazine
May 8, 1988
"When the tight cloak of family life begins to unravel
Detroit Free Press
May 8, 1988
"In Love with Libraries"
Baltimore Sun Magazine
April 3, 1988
"Silent Conspiracy" (Reprint)
Chicago Tribune
April 10, 1988
"Montgomery Libraries Opened Entrancing World" (Reprint)
Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal
April 24, 1988
"Staying Silent about Mama's Drinking" (Reprint)
Atlanta Constitution
March 20, 1988
"Let the Dying Die Gracefully" (Reprint)
Montgomery Advertiser
March 17, 1988
"Breaking the Silence in Alcoholic Families"
San Jose Mercury News
February 18, 1988
"The neediest among us: Schizophrenic and homeless"
Chicago Tribune
January 12, 1988
"Death is not a Disease"
Los Angeles Times
November 27, 1987
Subsequently reprinted in many papers and magazines nationally and internationally (including Paris Herald Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Constitution, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Montgomery Advertiser, Sarasota Herald-Tribune) via the LATIMES/WASHINGTON POST wire service
"Marguerite Rawalt, Agent of Change"
National Business Woman
April/May, 1986
"Agenda for the New (and slightly improved) Congress" (co-authored with Lavinia Edmunds)
Ms.
February, 1983
"Congress and Child Care: Legislative Update"
Working Woman
December, 1984
"Equity in Exile"
Ms.
November, 1984
"Interview: Meridel Le Sueur"
The Washington Book Review
Winter, 1983
Winner of Indiana State University's Eugene V. Debs Award
"Help! Books" (A column on self-help)
The Washington Book Review
Winter, 1983
"Cabinet Member Margaret Heckler: Reagan's Answer to the Gender Gap?" (with Lavinia Edmunds)
Ms.
July 1983
"Women Hard at Work
Europe
May/June, 1983
"A Hard Act to Follow: ERA and the Economic Equity Act" (with Lavinia Edmunds)
Savvy
February 1983
"Judith"
Women: A Journal of Liberation
1983
"Shirely Surely," a profile of Shirely Chisholm
City Paper, Washington, D.C.
December 10, 1982
"Reagan's Blind Spot"
Christian Century
October 13, 1982
"Major parties still seen as women's way to power"
St.Petersburg Times
October 17, 1982
"Interview with Maya Angelou" (Reprint)
Vogue
September, 1982
"Davida Meets Goliath: Goliath Falls
Hartford Courant
August, 1982
"Major Decisions
On Campus
Fall, 1982
"Alice Walker Speaks for Herself"
The Washington Book Review
Fall, 1982
"The 'New Republican' South"
Christian Science Monitor
July 23, 1982
"From the Heartland: An Interview with Rita Mae Brown" and review of Southern Discomfort
The Washington Book Review
June/July, 1982
"Crossing Boundaries: An Interview with Marge Piercy" and review of Braided Lives
The Washington Book Review
April/May, 1982
"Whose Freedom of Choice?"
The Progressive
April, 1982
"George Wallace: The Great Black Hope?" (co-authored with Jeff Stein)
Village Voice
April 13, 1982
"Maya Angelou: Black Woman in White America" (Reprint)
The Dayton Daily News Magazine
April 4, 1982
"One Woman's tale of a self-induced abortion," a profile of author Marge Piercy
Los Angeles Herald Examiner
March 21, 1982
"George Wallace Is On The Move Again"
St. Petersburg Times
March 14, 1982
"Northern Light: An Interview with Margaret Atwood," and review of Life Before Man
The Washington Book Review
February/March, 1982
"Heart Beat: An Interview with Maya Angelou," and review of The Heart of a Man
The Washington Book Review
February/March, 1982
"By Bread Alone: The New Materialism"
Christian Century
December 16, 1981
"Misogyny's in the saddle and all's wrong with the world"
Montgomery Advertiser
November 12, 1981
"How Reagan and the New Right are trampling women"
Baltimore News American
October 8, 1981
"The New Conservatism and the 'Useless Professions'"
Christian Century
September 9, 1981
"Looking for Mr. Good Deal"
Christian Century
July 29-August 5, 1981
"Does the Southern Woman Want to be Liberated?"
The Floridian/St. Petersburg Times
June 18, 1978
"Feminism in the Bible Belt"
Radical Teacher
1977

Poetry

"Blues"
Sunbury Vol. 6
1978
"Equal Protection"
Sunbury Vol. 6
1978
"Postbellum Landmark"
Earth's Daughters
1980
"Looking Up"
Plexus
November, 1977
Coming Home Cycle: "Unbound," "Withdrawal," "Motherland," and "Holy Mothers"
Sinister Wisdom 3
Spring, 1977
"Perdido Bay"
Images
1977