Zelda Fitzgerald, along with her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, is remembered above all else as a personification of the style and glamour of the roaring twenties - an age of carefree affluence such as the world has not seen since. But along with the wealth and parties came a troubled mind, at a time when a woman exploiting her freedom of expression was likely to attract accusations of insanity. After 1934 Zelda spent most of her life in a mental institution; outliving her husband by few years, she died in a fire as she was awaiting electroconvulsive therapy in a sanatorium. Zelda's story has often been told by detractors, who would cast her as a parasite in the marriage - most famously, Ernest Hemingway accused her of taking pleasure in blunting her husband's genius; when she wrote her autobiographical novel, Fitzgerald himself complained she had used his material. But was this fair, when Fitzgerald's novels were based on their life together? Sally Cline's biography, first published in 2003, makes use of letters, journals, and doctor's records to detail the development of their marriage, and to show the collusion between husband and doctors in a misdirected attempt to 'cure' Zelda's illness. Their prescription - no dancing, no painting, and above all, no writing - left her creative urges with no outlet, and was bound to make matters worse for a woman who thrived on the expression of allure and wealth.

Radclyffe Hall was the pen-name of Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall, the author of The Well of Loneliness, which on its publication in 1928 became the centre of a trial for obscenity and was banned in Britain until 1949. The novel itself openly discussed lesbian relationships and challenged contemporary ideas about lesbianism. Radclyffe-Hall's life as well as her novel flouted convention, and Sally Cline's biography, first published in 1998, explores her other literary works, as well as her relationships and politics, which were often at odds.

lluminated by a profound yet humorous vision, Lifting the Taboo explores the specific relationship women of many colors, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations have to their own deaths, their attitudes towards loss, and their disposition to their role as primary care-givers to the dying.

Specifically, the book weighs the implications of breast cancer and examines in detail Alzheimer's Disease which, contrary to popular myth, can in several significant ways be perceived as a women's disease. Investigating mothers' responses to children's deaths, Sally Cline establishes that women's relationships to death are intricately connected to the experience of giving birth. They are, she argues, therefore psychologically and emotionally different from those of men. Cline goes on to examine women's roles and responses to AIDS and suicide, women's sexual relationships while dying, how society views widows as leftover lives, and women's radical work in hospices and death therapy, as well as their roles as female funeral directors.

From Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith to Val McDermid and JK Rowling, After Agatha is an indispensable guide to women's crime writing over the last century and an exploration of why women read crime Spanning the 1930s to present day, After Agatha charts the explosion in women\'s crime writing and examines key developments on both sides of the Atlantic: from the women writers at the helm of the UK Golden Age and their American and Canadian counterparts fighting to be heard, to the 1980s experimental trio, Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, who created the first female PIs, and the more recent emergence of forensic crime writing and domestic noir thrillers such as Gone Girl and Apple Tree Yard. After Agatha examines the diversification of crime writing and highlights landmark women's novels which featured the marginalised in society as centralised characters. Cline also explores why women readers are drawn to the genre and seek out justice in crime fiction, in a world where violent crimes against women rarely have such resolution. The book includes interviews with dozens of contemporary authors such as Ann Cleeves, Sophie Hannah, Tess Gerritsen and Kathy Reichs and features the work of hundreds of women crime and mystery writers. It is an essential read for crime fiction lovers.

Literary Non-Fiction: A Writers' & Artists' Companion is an essential guide to writing in a wide range of genres, from travel writing to feminist polemic and writing on nature, history, death, friendship and sexuality. Part 1 explores the full range of genres and asks the question: what is literary non-fiction? Part 2 includes tips by such bestselling literary non-fiction writers as: Lisa Appignanesi, Rosemary Bailey, Gillian Beer, Bidisha, Lizzie Collingham, William Dalrymple, Stevie Davies, Colin Grant, Rahila Gupta, Philip Hoare, Siri Hustvedt, Alice Kessler-Harris, Barry Lopez, Richard Mabey, Robert Macfarlane, Sara Maitland, Neil McKenna, Caroline Moorehead, Susie Orbach, Jennifer Potter, Susan Sellers, Dava Sobel, Diana Souhami, Dale Spender, Francis Spufford, Daniel Swift, Colin Thubron, Natasha Walter, Sara Wheeler and Simon Winchester. Part 3 offers practical advice - from planning and researching to writing a proposal and finding an agent or a publisher when your work is complete.

Life Writing: A Writers' & Artists' Companion is an essential guide to writing biography, autobiography and memoir. PART 1 explores the history and forms of life writing and the challenges and potential pitfalls of the genre. PART 2 includes tips by bestselling writers: Diana Athill, Alan Bennett, Alain de Botton, Jill Dawson, Millicent Dillon, Margaret Drabble, Geoff Dyer, Victoria Glendinning, Lyndall Gordon, Peter Hayter, Richard Holmes, Michael Holroyd, Kathryn Hughes, Diane Johnson, Hermione Lee, Andrew Lownie, Janet Malcolm, Alexander Masters, Nancy Milford, Blake Morrison, Andrew Morton, Clare Mulley, Jenni Murray, Nicholas Murray, Kristina Olsson, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, Meryle Secrest, Miranda Seymour, Frances Spalding, Hilary Spurling, Boyd Tonkin, Edmund White. PART 3 includes practical advice - from planning, researching and interviewing to writing, pacing and navigating ethical issues.

The Arvon Book of Literary Non-Fiction is an essential guide to writing in a wide range of genres, from travel writing to feminist polemic and writing on nature, history, death, friendship and sexuality.
Part 1 explores the full range of genres and asks the question: what is literary non-fiction?
Part 2 includes tips by such bestselling literary non-fiction writers as: Lisa Appignanesi, Rosemary Bailey, Gillian Beer, Bidisha, Lizzie Collingham, William Dalrymple, Stevie Davies, Colin Grant, Rahila Gupta, Philip Hoare, Siri Hustvedt, Alice Kessler-Harris, Barry Lopez, Richard Mabey, Robert Macfarlane, Sara Maitland, Neil McKenna, Caroline Moorehead, Susie Orbach, Jennifer Potter, Susan Sellers, Dava Sobel, Diana Souhami, Dale Spender, Francis Spufford, Daniel Swift, Colin Thubron, Natasha Walter, Sara Wheeler and Simon Winchester.
Part 3 offers practical advice - from planning and researching to writing a proposal and finding an agent or a publisher when your work is complete.

lluminated by a profound yet humorous vision, Lifting the Taboo explores the specific relationship women of many colors, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations have to their own deaths, their attitudes towards loss, and their disposition to their role as primary care-givers to the dying.

Specifically, the book weighs the implications of breast cancer and examines in detail Alzheimer's Disease which, contrary to popular myth, can in several significant ways be perceived as a women's disease. Investigating mothers' responses to children's deaths, Sally Cline establishes that women's relationships to death are intricately connected to the experience of giving birth. They are, she argues, therefore psychologically and emotionally different from those of men. Cline goes on to examine women's roles and responses to AIDS and suicide, women's sexual relationships while dying, how society views widows as leftover lives, and women's radical work in hospices and death therapy, as well as their roles as female funeral directors.