Then she began to write books drawing on her own experiences–like passing up motherhood, passionately tending a flower garden, and attending a traditional girls’ boarding school in Connecticut.Ī chapter from her next book, Without Child: Challenging the Stigma of Childlessness, has been included in an anthology about the topic. She moved to a village in New England, and wrote a biography about a sculptor, Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life. After moving to New York City, she worked for Newsweek before writing her first book, the best-selling Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Her first job after college was working for The Providence Journal, where she got her first professional bylines for writing feature stories. She began writing as a young girl, almost always about what really happened rather than what she imagined.

Written with courage and grace, writing it was an extraordinary inner journey–full of memories, discoveries, and insights–which enriched her understanding of the past and the present. Laurie, the author of six books, cultivated her curiosity about the lives of American women, digging for truth and understanding before examining her own life.ĭrawing extensively on her journals, she has written a memoir, Word for Word: A Writer’s Life. It’s a deep dive into a writer’s brand of moxie. In this episode, Laurie shares her writer’s journey and provides insight into the creative process and the discipline required to make writing a career. Through this creative medium, she has explored herself and others, tackling challenges, embracing change, understanding setbacks, and making sense of universal themes in the human experience. Laurie’s moxie is expressed through her writing.

Without Child by Laurie Lisle