thanks4typing

Sylvia Plath’s ghostly presence

I don’t know if Ted Hughes thanked his wife, Sylvia Plath, for typing in any of his acknowledgements, but he should have. She typed, and typed, and typed. She typed submissions for the poetry competitions that gave him early success. She typed the sets of poems he submitted to Fabers, which garnered the attention of T. S. Eliot, poet and publisher. But Plath herself was not published by Fabers until after her death in 1963, when Hughes, who had left her, negotiated a contract with Faber & Faber because he [...]

September 30th, 2020|Categories: Books, Writing a Woman's Life|Tags: |

“Hidden Wives” & #thanksfortyping in the TLS

Details from my article “Hidden Wives, Hidden Lives” was picked up by the Times Literary Supplement a couple weeks ago. I enjoyed reading the TLS writer’s additions - including Robert Caro’s note about his wife, Ina Caro. In fact, a colleague had suggested I include the Caros in my piece, mentioning that Ina Caro had gone so far as to wear gingham dresses and make jelly with Texas hill country women to get them to talk to her husband about Lyndon Johnson. The Acknowledgments page is a familiar part of [...]