Brenda Wineapple
Encyclopedia
Brenda Wineapple is an American nonfiction writer, literary critic, and essayist. Her books include White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson; Hawthorne: A Life; Sister Brother Gertrude and Leo Stein; and Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner. A regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review, The Nation and other national publications, she is also the editor of The Selected Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier (a volume in the Library of America's American Poets Project) and Nineteenth-Century American Writers on Writing (a volume in The Writers’ World, ed. Edward Hirsch).
Wineapple has received a Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, and two National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships. She has also been a Donald C. Gallup Fellow at the Beinecke Library, Yale University
, and a fellow of the Indiana Institute of Arts and Letters. Presently a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU
, she is a past president of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society and a literary advisor for the Library of America
and for the Guggenheim foundation.
Wineapple is the former Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at The Graduate School, CUNY
. She also teaches in the MFA programs at The New School University
and Columbia University's School of the Arts
and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College
and Union College
, where she was Washington Irving Professor of Modern Literary and Historical Studies.
Genêt
In 1989, Wineapple published her first book Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner
with Ticknor and Fields (paperback, University of Nebraska Press, 1992.) May Sarton called it “wonderfully perceptive and moving,” and Kay Boyle wrote "how Brenda Wineapple understood Genêt and her times is almost uncanny. She writes of them with clarity and accuracy in a style that is almost startling in its simplicity." Genêt is the first and only biography of the woman who wrote “The Paris Letter” for The New Yorker for fifty years, since its founding in 1925.
Sister Brother
"A dramatically compelling story," according to the Washington Post, Sister Brother Gertrude and Leo Stein
(Putnam’s, 1996, Univ. of Nebraska 1997) is a dual biography of the complex, doomed relationship between Gertrude Stein
and her brother Leo, whose collection of modern art was unparalleled and whose salon in Paris was the celebrated gathering place of writers and artists. This book was an Editor’s Choice of the Los Angeles Times and hailed by poet Richard Howard as “a luminous, harrowing achievement for which all students of literature and art, as well as of families! are in Brenda Wineapple’s debt.”
Hawthorne
Hawthorne: A Life (Knopf, 2003, Random House 2004) won the Ambassador Award of the English-speaking Union for the Best Biography of 2003, the Julia Ward Howe Prize from the Boston Book Club, and was listed as one of the Best Books of 2003 by The Providence Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Newsday, among other publications. Robert D. Richardson called it “a brilliant, powerful, nervy, unsettling, and riveting book. With the possible exception of Herman Melville, no one has ever understood the grand, tragic Shakespearian nature of Hawthorne’s life and work as well as Brenda Wineapple.”
White Heat
Called "trenchant" in The New Yorker, "a tour de force" in The Washington Post, and "captivating" by Time Magazine, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson
and Thomas Wentworth Higginson
(Knopf 2008/Anchor Vintage 2009) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, a winner of the Marfield Prize for Arts Writing, and a New York Times "Notable Book.” It was named one of the Best Books of 2008 by The Times Literary Supplement, The Washington Post, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, The Providence Journal, and The Kansas City Star, among other publications. White Heat explores for the first time “the quiet drama and elusive tempos of one of the most improbable and fateful authorial friendships in all of American writing.”
Wineapple has received a Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, and two National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships. She has also been a Donald C. Gallup Fellow at the Beinecke Library, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and a fellow of the Indiana Institute of Arts and Letters. Presently a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, she is a past president of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society and a literary advisor for the Library of America
Library of America
The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published over 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to Philip...
and for the Guggenheim foundation.
Wineapple is the former Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at The Graduate School, CUNY
CUNY Graduate Center
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...
. She also teaches in the MFA programs at The New School University
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
and Columbia University's School of the Arts
Columbia University School of the Arts
The Columbia University School of the Arts , also known simply as the School of the Arts or as SoA, is the division of the university that offers Master of Fine Arts degrees in Film, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, and Writing, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies...
and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
and Union College
Union College
Union College is a private, non-denominational liberal arts college located in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. In the 19th century, it became the "Mother of Fraternities", as...
, where she was Washington Irving Professor of Modern Literary and Historical Studies.
Genêt
In 1989, Wineapple published her first book Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner was an American writer and journalist who served as the Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975. She wrote under the pen name "Genêt"...
with Ticknor and Fields (paperback, University of Nebraska Press, 1992.) May Sarton called it “wonderfully perceptive and moving,” and Kay Boyle wrote "how Brenda Wineapple understood Genêt and her times is almost uncanny. She writes of them with clarity and accuracy in a style that is almost startling in its simplicity." Genêt is the first and only biography of the woman who wrote “The Paris Letter” for The New Yorker for fifty years, since its founding in 1925.
Sister Brother
"A dramatically compelling story," according to the Washington Post, Sister Brother Gertrude and Leo Stein
Leo Stein
Leo Stein was an American art collector and critic. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, the older brother of Gertrude Stein. He became an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings. Beginning in 1892, he studied at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for two years. The...
(Putnam’s, 1996, Univ. of Nebraska 1997) is a dual biography of the complex, doomed relationship between Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
and her brother Leo, whose collection of modern art was unparalleled and whose salon in Paris was the celebrated gathering place of writers and artists. This book was an Editor’s Choice of the Los Angeles Times and hailed by poet Richard Howard as “a luminous, harrowing achievement for which all students of literature and art, as well as of families! are in Brenda Wineapple’s debt.”
Hawthorne
Hawthorne: A Life (Knopf, 2003, Random House 2004) won the Ambassador Award of the English-speaking Union for the Best Biography of 2003, the Julia Ward Howe Prize from the Boston Book Club, and was listed as one of the Best Books of 2003 by The Providence Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Newsday, among other publications. Robert D. Richardson called it “a brilliant, powerful, nervy, unsettling, and riveting book. With the possible exception of Herman Melville, no one has ever understood the grand, tragic Shakespearian nature of Hawthorne’s life and work as well as Brenda Wineapple.”
White Heat
Called "trenchant" in The New Yorker, "a tour de force" in The Washington Post, and "captivating" by Time Magazine, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
and Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism...
(Knopf 2008/Anchor Vintage 2009) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, a winner of the Marfield Prize for Arts Writing, and a New York Times "Notable Book.” It was named one of the Best Books of 2008 by The Times Literary Supplement, The Washington Post, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, The Providence Journal, and The Kansas City Star, among other publications. White Heat explores for the first time “the quiet drama and elusive tempos of one of the most improbable and fateful authorial friendships in all of American writing.”