Born in Milan and raised in Connecticut, she graduated from Bryn Mawr, earned a Master's degree from Harvard, a degree from the Sorbonne, a law degree from Yale and honorary doctorates from Georgetown and Oberlin. In 1962 she became a staff writer for The New Yorker and remained there for 4 decades. She interrupted her time at the New Yorker for one year, working as the film critic for the New York Times. Her scathing review of the book by Pauline Kael, a fellow writer at The New Yorker in 1980 cause an uproar in literary circles She has taught at Boston University and at Yale. Her writings have won numerous awards.

New York Review of Books, https://www.nyrb.com/collections/renata-adler 

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renata_Adler 

The Observor.  Cooke, Rachel.  Renata Adler: I’ve been described as shrill. Isn’t that strange? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/07/renata-adler-new-york-author-interview 

New York Magazine, 72 minutes with Renata Adler, https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/renata-adler-2013-3/

Pennsylvania Center for the Book,  https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/bios/Adler__Renata

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                                            Rose working as freelance writer        Current view of her King St. Danbury home

The daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder, she was born in the;Dakota territory, in what is now known as South Dakota. After a series of catastrophes including drought, a house fire and illness – they moved to a farm in Mansfield Missouri.  Rose excelled in school, but her parents did not have the money to send her to college. She went to Crowley, Louisiana to live with her aunt for a while, graduating at the head of the class in 1904.  She decided to become a telegraph operator, a job newly open to women, and moved to Kansas City just before her 18th birthday.  She eventually moved to California and took a newspaper job writing for the San Francisco Call. She married Gillette Lane in 1909. The marriage wasn't a happy one and they divorced in 1918. After the divorce she became a freelance writer. In the 1920s she was one of the best-known and highest-paid female writers. She was Herbert Hoovers first biographer, writing the book with Charles K. Field. Asked to be an oversees correspondent for the Red Cross, she traveled throughout Europe, spending time in Albania. Several of her books from this period feature that country. She built a house for her aging parents in Mansfield and encouraged Laura to start writing down some of the stories of her early pioneer life. They produced Pioneer Girl. A friend thought it would make a great children's book, and Little House in the Big Woods was published in 1932. She continued to write her own books and helped found the American Libertarian Movement. She died peacefully at her home in Danbury CT  

Connecticut Explored, Rose Wilder Lane: Little House in Connecticut, Fall 2010, https://www.ctexplored.org/little-house-in-connecticut/ 
Harris, Karen.  History Daily, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s famous Daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. https://historydaily.org/laura-ingalls-wilders-famous-daughter-rose-wilder-lane 

Wililam Pitt/Sotheby's A Classic Colonial Home in Danbury https://www.williampitt.com/a-classic-colonial-home-in-danbury/

                                                       With the Chang Kai-Sheks                     With husband, Henry Luce

She was born in New York City, but her parents soon moved to Memphis Tennessee. After they divorced, her mother moved back to New York.  Clare appeared in several plays to help earn money for the family and didn’t start attending school until she was 12. Her mother married a wealthy doctor, Albert Austin, who would later serve in the Connecticut state legislature and the U.S. Congress.  In 1923 she married George Brokaw and they had a daughter,but divorced in 1929.  She wanted to write and was hired at Vogue.  By 1933 she had become managing editor of Vanity Fair.  In 1935 she married Henry Luce, founder of Time, Life and Fortune magazines.   In 1936 her play, The Women was a success.   During the war, she became a correspondent for Life magazine.   Her interest in politics developed during the Great Depression.  She worked for the National Party in 1932.  She briefly supported Franklin Delano Roosevelt but broke with him over his New Deal economic programs.  She supported Wendell Willkie in the 1940 presidential campaign and became active in Republican politics.  She was asked to run for US Congress as the representative from Connecticut and eventually agreed. She won the election in 1940 and reelection in 1944 and was very vocal about the menace of Soviet foreign policy and Stalin.  In January of 1944 her daughter died in an auto accident.  Luce’s interest in politics faded as she tried to come to terms with the death. She did not run for reelection and retired in 1947. In 1953 Pres. Eisenhower appointed her Ambassador to Italy, where she served until 1957.  She and her husband moved to Hawaii after she rejected an ambassadorship to Brazil.  In 1983 she served on Pres. Reagan’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She died in Washington D. C, in 1987 of cancer. 

United States House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives.  Luce, Clare Boothe.  https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/17213 

Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training , Clare Booth Luce: Ambassador, Congresswoman, Playwright  https://adst.org/oral-history/fascinating-figures/clare-boothe-luce-a-woman-for-all-time/

                             with James Baldwin

She followed in her father’s footsteps, became a pharmacist, and worked in his store.  In 1938, she married George D. Petry and they moved to Harlem. She began her writing career, taking a job at the People’s Voice and enrolling in classes at Columbia. She joined the American Negro Theater in Harlem. In 1946 her first book, The Street,was published followed by Country Place the next year. She was surprised by the attention she received when these were published and moved back to Old Saybrook to escape it. She published stories and children’s books in the 1950s and 1960s.  She wrote another novel which was published in 1970 .  She left Saybrook  several times – to work on a movie script in Hollywood, to teach at two universities- but she always returned to her hometown. 

Ann Petry’s success and our failure, The Day, www.theday.com/article/20200308/OP03/200309534

Black past, Ann Lane Petry, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/petry-ann-1908-1997/    

Ann Petry by Farah Jasmine Griffin, Harvard Magazine, Brief life of novelist Ann Petry, by Farah Jasmine Griffin | Harvard Magazine

Six fascinating facts about Ann Petry,  https://www.literarylahttps://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/6-interesting-acts-about-ann-petry/