Ann McCutchan
Ann McCutchan
Published Biography
The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
W.W. Norton Publisher
May 11, 2021
Author Ann McCutchan. Photo by Susan Moldenhauer
The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is a finalist for the Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts Writing
About the book:
Washington, DC, born and Wisconsin educated, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an unlikely author of a coming-of-age novel about a poor central Florida child and his pet fawn–The Yearling–much less one that has become synonymous with Florida literature writ large. Rawlings was a tough, passionate, and independent woman who refused the early-twentieth-century conventions of her upbringing. Determined to forge a literary career beyond those limitations, she found her voice in the remote hardscrabble life of Cross Creek, Florida. Between hunting alligator and managing an orange grove, Rawlings employed her sensitive eye, sharp ear for dialogue, and philosophical spirit to bring to life an unknown corner of America in vivid, tender detail―a feat that earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1938. The Life She Wished to Live paints a lively portrait of Rawlings, her contemporaries―including her legendary editor Maxwell Perkins and friends Zora Neale Hurston and Ernest Hemingway―and the Florida landscape and people that inspired her.
About the author:
Ann McCutchan is the author of six books of memoir, essay, and biography. Her newest book, The Life She Wished to Live: a Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Author of The Yearling, was published by W.W. Norton in May, 2021. She is a lyricist and librettist as well, currently working on her ninth commission. She lives in Asheville, NC.
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Ann McCutchan
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