Little Women

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Louisa's childhood at "Hillside" served as the basis for the action in her most popular novel, Little Women, which she wrote as an adult living in "Orchard House." The title of Ms. Alcott's first published short story was The Rival Painters: A Tale of Rome (1852), and her first published book was Flower Fables (1854). She died at age 55 on March 6, 1888. Jane Smiley was born in Los Angeles, California on September 26, 1949. She received a B. A. at Vassar College in 1971 and an M. F. A. and a Ph.D from the University of Iowa. From 1981 to 1996, she taught undergrad and graduate creative writing workshops at Iowa State University. Her first critically acclaimed novel, The Greenlanders (1988), was preceded by three other novels and a highly regarded short story collection, The Age of Grief (1987). In 1985, she won an O. Henry Award for her short story Lily, which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her novel A Thousand Acres (1991) received both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her other works include Moo; Horse Heaven; and Ordinary Love and Good Will. Ms. Smiley's latest novel is entitled, Private Life.