The following books helped me understand California women’s true place in history: Apron Full of Gold, Mary Jane C. Megquier; With Great Hope, JoAnn Chartier and Chris Enss; The Shirley Letters, Louisa Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe; Roaring Camp, Susan Lee Johnson; Nuggets of Nevada County, Juanita Kennedy Browne; California, Kevin Starr; They Saw the Elephant, JoAnn Levy; The California Indians, R.F. Heizer and M. A. Whipple; African American Women of the Old West, Tricia Martineau Wagner; Testimonios, Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz; Behold the Day: The Color Block Prints of Frances Gearhart, Victoria Dailey, Nancy E. Green, and Susan Futterman; The Decline of the Californios, Leonard Pitt; It Happened in Northern California, Erin H. Turner; Gold Dust and Gunsmoke, Jon Boessenecker; Westward the Women, Vicki Piekarski; Rooted in Barbarous Soil, Kevin Starr and Richard J. Orsi; The Age of Gold, H. W. Brands; Sex, Gender, and Culture in California, Albert L. Hurtado; High-Spirited Women of the West, Anne Seagraves; Women’s Voices from the Motherlode, Susan G. Butruille; Covered Wagon Women, Kenneth L. Holmes; Land of Golden Dreams, Peter J. Blodgett; Ina Coolbrith, Josephine DeWitt Rhodendamel and Raymund Francis Wood; Mining for Freedom, Silvia Roberts; Women and the Conquest of California, Virginia Bouvier; Anne Brigman: A Visionary in Modern Photography, Ann M. Wolfe, Susan Ehrens, Alexander Nemerov, Kathleen Pyne, and Heather Waldroup; Mary Hallock Foote: Author-Illustrator of the American West, Darlis A. Miller; and Juana Briones of 19th-Century California, Jeanne Farr McDonnell; Self Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson; American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Susan Cheever; and Louisa May Alcott: A Biography, Madeleine B. Stern.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised on the American River in Sacramento, Wendy Voorsanger has long held an intense interest in the historical women of California. She started her career in the Silicon Valley, writing about technology trends and innovations for newspapers, magazines, and Fortune 100 companies. She currently manages SheIsCalifornia.net, a blog dedicated to chronicling the accomplishments of California women through history. She earned a BA in journalism from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and has attended Hedgebrook, the Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, and Lit Camp. She is a member of the Castro Writers’ Cooperative, the Lit Camp Advisory Board, and the San Mateo Public Library Literary Society. She has also worked as a lifeguard, ski instructor, and radio disc jockey. Wendy lives in Northern California with her husband and two boys. Learn more at www.wendyvoorsanger.net.
Author photo © Phonethip Sritiraj, Indulge Photography
SELECTED TITLES FROM SHE WRITES PRESS
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
Eliza Waite by Ashley Sweeney. $16.95, 978-1-63152-058-7. When Eliza Waite chooses to leave a stagnant life in rural Washington State and join the masses traveling north to Alaska in 1898 during the tumultuous Klondike Gold Rush, she encounters challenges and successes in both business and love.
The Vintner’s Daughter by Kristen Harnisch. $16.95, 978-163152-929-0. Set against the sweeping canvas of French and California vineyard life in the late 1890s, this is the compelling tale of one woman’s struggle to reclaim her family’s Loire Valley vineyard—and her life.
Lum by Libby Ware. $16.95, 978-1-63152-003-7. In Depression-era Appalachia, an intersex woman without a home of her own plays the role of maiden aunt to her relatives—until an unexpected series of events gives her the opportunity to change her fate.
Even in Darkness by Barbara Stark-Nemon. $16.95, 978-1-63152-956-6. From privileged young German-Jewish woman to concentration camp refugee, Kläre Kohler navigates the horrors of war and—through unlikely sources—finds the strength, hope, and love she needs to survive.
Tasa’s Song by Linda Kass. $16.95, 978-1-63152-064-8. From a peaceful village in eastern Poland to a partitioned post-war Vienna, from a promising childhood to a year living underground, Tasa’s Song celebrates the bonds of love, the power of memory, the solace of music, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.
In a Silent Way by Mary Jo Hetzel. $16.95, 978-1-63152-135-5. When Jeanna Kendall—a young white teacher at a progressive urban school—becomes involved with a community activist group, she finds herself grappling with issues of racism, sexism, and oppression of various shades in both her professional and personal life.
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