Happy Birthday, Laura Ingalls Wilder

It’s hard to believe, but this week marks one year since I began working in New York City. Over the past year I’ve become increasingly familiar with some wonderful “academic” blogs, including Krista Kennedy’s Thinkery, which features some excellent photography.

That includes photos from Kennedy’s trip to Pepin, Wisconsin–the birthplace of an author whose entire oeuvre I read voraciously when I was in elementary school: Laura Ingalls Wilder.

As I recall from this biography, which I devoured back in fifth grade (and which I cited at the time as evidence in an argument with my then-best friend over “truth” vs. “fiction” in the Little House books–yes, even at 10 I was prone to writing-related arguments!), Laura Ingalls was born in that Little House in the Big Woods on February 7, 1867. So here’s to a writer who will always linger in the reading memories of this practicing writer, and, I know (from Thinkery and from a conversation with a writer friend last week at AWP, for just two examples), in others’.

2 thoughts on “Happy Birthday, Laura Ingalls Wilder

  1. Krista says:

    Congrats on your milestone, and thanks for the kind words! I’m consistently amazed at what a wonderful commonality the Little House books are for so many of us. I also visited the Kansas Little House during last summer’s road trip (http://www.flickr.com/photos/slimcoincidence/sets/72157600313799889/), and the librarians who run the place said that nobody who visits is ever unhappy or unpleasant while they’re there because everybody has such fondness for the stories.

    Not a bad gig, eh?

  2. Erika D. says:

    Thanks so much for your comment, Krista, and for the link to the additional photos. And keep up the great work with Thinkery!

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