EDITOŔS NOTE

American Women Writers, Second Edition is an important resource for many reasons, the least of which is to disseminate information about hundreds of women writers who have been routinely overlooked. A veritable treasure trove of knowledge, the women profiled in this series have literally changed the world, from Margaret Sanger's quest for reproductive freedom to Jane Addams and Hull House, from Sylvia Earle and Rachel Carson's environmental concerns, to the aching beauty of poems by Olga Broumas, Emily Dickinson, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, Sara Teasdale, Lorrie Moore, and many others. There are writers who are immensely entertaining (M.F.K. Fisher, Jean Craighead George, Sue Grafton, Helen MacInnes, Terry McMillan, C. L. Moore, Barbara Neely, Danielle Steel), some who wish to instruct on faith (Dorothy Day, Mary Baker Eddy, Catherine Marshall, Anne Morrow Lindbergh), others who revisit the past to educate us (Gwendolyn Brooks, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Paula Allen Gunn, Carolyn Heilbrun, Mary Johnston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Mary White Ovington, Sherley Ann Williams, Mourning Dove), and still more who wish to shock us from complacency of one kind or another (Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Lillian Hellman, Shirley Jackson, Harriet Jacobs, Shirley Jackson, Carson McCullers, A.G. Mojtabai, Bharati Mukherjee, Carry A. Nation, Flannery O'Connor, Anne Sexton, Phillis Wheatley, and more).

The women filling these pages have nothing and everything in common; they are female, yes, but view their lives and worth in vastly different manners. There is no census of ethnicity, class, age, or sexuality—the prerequisites for inclusion had only to do with a body of work, the written word in all its forms, and the unfortunate limits of time and space. Yes, there are omissions, none by choice: some were overlooked in favor of others (by a voting selection process), others were assigned and the material never received. In the end, it is the ongoing bane of publishing: there will never be enough time nor space to capture all—for there will (hopefully) always be new women writers coming to the fore, and newly discovered manuscripts to test our conceptions of life from a woman's eye.

Yet American Women Writers is just what it's title implies, a series of books recounting the life and works of American women from Colonial days to the present. Some writers produced far more than others, yet each woman contributed writing worthy of historical note, to be brought to the forefront of scholarship for new generations to read. Last but never least, thanks to Peter Gareffa for this opportunity; to Kristin Hart for her continual support and great attitude; to my associate editor Glynis Benbow-Niemier; to my editorial and research staff (Jocelyn Prucha, Diane Murphy, and Lori Prucha), and to the beloveds: Jordyn, Wylie, Foley, Hadley, and John.