The Private Marjorie

The letters, written to her second husband, Norton S. Baskin, from 1938 to her death in 1953, present a sharply drawn picture of the nation as it struggled through the end of the Depression, World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War era, as well as a picture of Rawlings's intriguing life, which ranged from the Florida scrub to the New York literary scene. Above all, they reveal the temperamental writer at her most human - candid, lonely, insecure, bawdy, generous, and always fortified by her love for Baskin.

"A treasure for anyone interested in how Max Perkins earned his reputation as the most gifted editor of all time by his sheer talent for friendship, encouragement, and sound judgment mixed with humor and tact. It equally reveals the grit and wit of his Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Their lively letters offer rare and engaging glimpses into the anatomy--and alchemy--of a bestseller and masterpiece."--Charles Scribner III "What a pleasure to read such gracious, literate, intimate and affectionate correspondence between an editor and an author. This, one can't help feeling, is the way it ought to be."--Michael Korda, author of Another Life "A wonderful illustration of the special relationship between author and editor that even today still lies at the heart of publishing. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was a strong and valiant character, a major talent with all the doubts and difficulties that go along with it. In Max Perkins she found a receptive spirit whose good counsel engendered confidence and abiding trust; over time, a deep friendship evolved. Watching the delicate, enduring organism of their partnership grow is both heartening and inspiring."--Jonathan Galassi, Farrar, Straus & Giroux This compelling collection of letters brings together for the first time the entire known correspondence--nearly 700 letters, notes, and wires--of the preeminent 20th-century American editor and his Pulitzer Prize-winning author. While the letters reveal an intimate portrait of the literary and personal friendship of Maxwell Perkins and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, they also constitute a remarkable history of the Scribner publishing house from 1930 to 1947, when Perkins died. Rawlings, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1939 for The Yearling, was one of Scribner's stars in an era when publishing was difficult for women writers. Perkins was her champion, offering editorial opinion, a week-by-week critique of her work, and candid gossip about other writers he nurtured, most notably Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe. Perkins and Rawlings brought magic to their correspondence. Though four years passed before they used each other's first name, their attraction was immediate and mutual: they shared a sense of humor, concerns about health, discreet details about their marriages, a weakness for the bottle, and, at times, agonizing fits of despair. She sent him oranges from her citrus grove in north central Florida; he mailed her a steady supply of the stimulating nonfiction she loved to read while writing novels. Rawlings wrote not just to Perkins but for him. He responded--to both her life and her work--with wisdom, clarity, and generosity. The correspondence of these two superb letter writers presents an eloquent artifact of a rare literary partnership. Rodger L. Tarr, University Distinguished Professor at Illinois State University, is the editor of Short Stories by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (UPF, 1994), Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: A Descriptive Bibliography (Pittsburgh, 1996), and Poems by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: Songs of a Housewife (UPF, 1997).

A collection of short stories by the author of "The Yearling" is set in the backwoods of Florida

"A fascinating tapestry woven from the lives of women who had won the right to vote a mere six years earlier. In Songs of a Housewife, we hear the voice of an emerging feminist, a voice that stubbornly and--given the political climate of the 1920s--courageously insists that women be respected. Fans of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings will be surprised and ultimately delighted by this long overdue collection."--Connie May Fowler, author of Sugar Cage and Before Women Had Wings "Makes available for the first time [the] early work of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. . . . Reveals themes, attitudes, phrases, habits of speech . . . and a predilection for irony that characterizes [her] later work."--Peggy W. Prenshaw, Louisiana State University "Rawlings's poetry is surprisingly good. . . . solid, traditional poetry about subjects that will never go out of fashion."--Joel Myerson, University of South Carolina More than a decade before writing The Yearling and Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was a young housewife-journalist living in Rochester, New York. In 1926, the Rochester Times-Union did a trial run of her column-in-verse, Songs of a Housewife. To the editor's surprise, the column proved immensely popular; over the next two years, Rawlings published a poem a day, six days a week, and gained a wide syndication. When she moved to Florida in 1928, however, the poems were forgotten and--until this collection of roughly half of them--never reprinted. In the 250 poems collected here, Rawlings presents homespun advice on such subjects as the trials and tribulations of being a cook, mother, friend, relative, and neighbor. She dedicates many to her favorite subjects: gardening, cooking, pets, and nature. Throughout, her goal is to entertain, to educate, and to give a voice to the housewife who sees her role as a creative and important one. In the process, of course, she also invariably reveals a great deal about herself, and devoted readers will be curious to see how the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings they know and love is evident here, in these early and spirited poems. Because little is known about Rawlings's life during this period, Songs of a Housewife is valuable as commentary on her evolving attitudes as a woman and as a writer, and many of the same themes appear in her later works. As a reflection of the life of a middle-class woman struggling to carve out an independent and fulfilling role for herself, these poems also offer a rare insight into the life of women in the late 1920s. Rodger L. Tarr is University Distinguished Professor of English at Illinois State University. His most recent publications are Short Stories of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (UPF, 1994) and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: A Descriptive Bibliography (1996).

'Cross Creek' is an autobiographical account of the author's relationships with her neighbors and her beloved Florida hammocks. The book's author happens to be Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 for her work The Yearling. Her experiences living in Cross Creek serves as the inspiration for said work, and in this publication we get to see exactly the wondrous experiences that Rawlings had living there as a member of the community.

An American classic—and Pulitzer Prize–winning story—that shows the ultimate bond between child and pet. No novel better epitomizes the love between a child and a pet than The Yearling. Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as his family fights off wolves, bears, and even alligators, and faces failure in their tenuous subsistence farming, Jody must finally part with his dear animal friend. There has been a film and even a musical based on this moving story, a fine work of great American literature.

A collection of company profiles that “succeeds in demonstrating how more sustainable business ventures can function in practice” (Publishers Weekly). As long as businesses are set up to focus exclusively on maximizing financial income for the few, our economy will be locked into endless growth and widening inequality. But now people are experimenting with new forms of ownership, which Marjorie Kelly calls generative: aimed at creating the conditions for life for many generations to come. These designs may hold the key to the deep transformation our civilization needs. To understand these emerging alternatives, Kelly reports from all over the world, visiting a community-owned wind facility in Massachusetts, a lobster cooperative in Maine, a multibillion-dollar employee-owned department-store chain in London, a foundation-owned pharmaceutical company in Denmark, a farmer-owned dairy in Wisconsin, and other places where a hopeful new economy is being built. Along the way, she finds the five essential patterns of ownership design that make these models work. “This magnificent book is a kind of recipe for how civilization might cope with its too-big-to-fail problem. It’s a hardheaded, clear-eyed, and therefore completely moving account of what a different world might look like—what it already does look like in enough places that you will emerge from its pages inspired to get involved.” —Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

A comprehensive and engaging biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the beloved classic The Yearling. Washington, DC, born and Wisconsin educated, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an unlikely author of a coming-of-age novel about a poor central Florida child and his pet fawn—much less one that has become synonymous with Florida literature writ large. Rawlings was a tough, ambitious, and independent woman who refused the conventions of her early-twentieth-century upbringing. Determined to forge a literary career beyond those limitations, she found her voice in the remote, hardscrabble life of Cross Creek, Florida. There, Rawlings purchased a commercial orange grove and discovered a fascinating world out of which to write—and a dialect of the poor, swampland community that the literary world had yet to hear. She employed her sensitive eye, sharp ear for dialogue, and philosophical spirit to bring to life this unknown corner of America in vivid, tender detail, a feat that earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1938. Her accomplishments came at a price: a failed first marriage, financial instability, a contentious libel suit, alcoholism, and physical and emotional upheaval. With intimate access to Rawlings’s correspondence and revealing early writings, Ann McCutchan uncovers a larger-than-life woman who writes passionately and with verve, whose emotions change on a dime, and who drinks to excess, smokes, swears, and even occasionally joins in on an alligator hunt. The Life She Wished to Live paints a lively portrait of Rawlings, her contemporaries—including her legendary editor, Maxwell Perkins, and friends Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald—and the Florida landscape and people that inspired her.

What is the role of the arts in American culture? Is art an essential element? If so, how should we support it? Today, as in the past, artists need the funding, approval, and friendship of patrons whether they are individuals, corporations, governments, or nonprofit foundations. But as Patronizing the Arts shows, these relationships can be problematic, leaving artists "patronized"--both supported with funds and personal interest, while being condescended to for vocations misperceived as play rather than serious work. In this provocative book, Marjorie Garber looks at the history of patronage, explains how patronage has elevated and damaged the arts in modern culture, and argues for the university as a serious patron of the arts. With clarity and wit, Garber supports rethinking prejudices that oppose art's role in higher education, rejects assumptions of inequality between the sciences and humanities, and points to similarities between the making of fine art and the making of good science. She examines issues of artistic and monetary value, and transactions between high and popular culture. She even asks how college sports could provide a new way of thinking about arts funding. Using vivid anecdotes and telling details, Garber calls passionately for an increased attention to the arts, not just through government and private support, but as a core aspect of higher education. Compulsively readable, Patronizing the Arts challenges all who value the survival of artistic creation both in the present and future.

Ever wonder why you can skip meals and cut calories--but never see the scale budge? Or why you keep craving those rich foods that sabotage weight loss? It's easy to blame yourself for a lack of willpower. But the truth is, you can't lose weight and keep it off without balancing your master hunger hormone--ghrelin. Ghrelin is the hormone that tells your body to eat when you're hungry. The right level of ghrelin keeps you feeling satisfied, slim, and healthy. But stress, lack of sleep, or eating at the wrong times can throw off your ghrelin levels, slowing down your metabolism and packing on belly fat and excess pounds. The good news: It's easy to get your ghrelin cycle back on track and shed that belly fat for good. The Belly Fat Fix shows you how to incorporate the science of ghrelin into an easy plan: • A simple diet packed with anti-ghrelin superfoods. More than 50 easy, delicious, ghrelin-busting recipes. • A quick exercise plan to tone you up and help keep ghrelin at bay. Reset your hunger hormone, fire up your metabolism, and lose that extra weight--up to 15 pounds in 30 days--without ever feeling hungry!