Jay Lamar: Mary Ward Brown

"Born in 1917 in Dallas County, Alabama, Mary Ward Brown published her first book of stories, the acclaimed Tongues of Flame, when she was 69. Praised for her “rock-firm” prose” and “shrewdly chiseled” stories, she shows us how mighty is the creative urge and assures us that its time will come." -- Jay Lamar

Jennifer Horne: Madeleine L'Engle

"My mother, sister, and I, because L’Engle once referred to herself as a bespectacled giraffe,  began sending her--a writer we did not know at all!--giraffe-themed presents for her birthday. She responded graciously, and warmly, and it was my first instance of a writer (beyond my own mother, a poet) seeming real to me." -- Jennifer Horne

Katie Lamar Jackson: Zora Neale Hurston

"Many women writers have inspired me—Willa Cather, Rachel Carson, and Mary Oliver among them—but none so much as Zora Neale Hurston. It is her exquisite use of nature and place to tell very human stories that first showed me the literary power of the natural world." -- Katie Lamar Jackson

Wendy Reed: Beverly Cleary

"Many women writers have nurtured me along the way. Beverly Cleary’s The Mouse and the Motorcycle –the first novel I ever owned--opened up a new universe to me. But it was Flannery O’Connor’s Christ-haunted South that opened up my eyes and inspired me to try writing my own short stories." -- Wendy Reed

Jay Lamar: Mary Ward Brown

"Two joys in one: Poet Molly Peacock brings her considerable literary gifts (and her own creative life) to The Paper Garden, the story of Mary Delany. Born in England in 1700, Mary was 72 when she turned her hand to collage. Her beautiful, botanically exact cut paper flowers, housed in the British Museum, are still studied and celebrated." -- Jay Lamar