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This author appeared at the 2009 festival. Please view the list of authors appearing at this year's festival or see our suggestions for similar authors below.
 Brenda Wineapple
In White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Wineapple weaves the story of two unlikely life-long correspondents: a brilliant, socially withdrawn poet and a champion of abolition and women's rights. Their relationship, which would only bring two face-to-face encounters over the course of 24 years, began with a letter Dickinson wrote to Higginson asking for his opinion on her poetry, since he wrote for The Atlantic Monthly. Her inquiry itself was strikingly poetic in its own right: "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?" Higginson was immediately enamored with her words and called it "poetry torn up at the roots." Wineapple, author of other notable biographies such as Hawthorne: A Life and Sister Brother Gertrude and Leo Stein, gracefully intertwines the stories of Dickinson's and Higginson's lives, their impassioned letters, and the poetry that united them to reveal a bond unfettered by lack of physical contact. Dickinson creates the impression of a highly emotional, coquettish woman when she greets Higginson with day lilies upon their first meeting, rushing to say, "These are my introduction, how long will you stay?" Higginson found himself exhausted after contact with her, admitting, "Without touching me, she drew from me." Such encounters enliven two often-illusive historical figures as well as bring to light an indelible friendship that would continue in spirit even after Dickinson's passing; Higginson went on to combat efforts to force traditional rhyme into her poetry prior to publication. The Washington Post proclaims that Wineapple "conjures up vivid scenes but never oversteps the historian's duty to fact… and interprets Dickinson's often challenging poems with eloquence and lucidity." Brenda Wineapple is a Guggenheim fellow and twice a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She teaches at Columbia University and The New School in New York City in the MFA programs.
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