Sallie Bingham
Sallie Bingham is a writer, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist.
Sallie’s first novel was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1961; she has since published six additional novels and the well-known family memoir, Passion and Prejudice (Knopf, 1989). Her forthcoming book, The Silver Swan: Searching for Doris Duke, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in May 2020.
She is founder of the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which published The American Voice, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University.
The Blue Box: Three Lives In Letters
“The heart and soul of my book lies in the vibrant silences I heard between the lines, silences that translated themselves into words as I wrote. The Blue Box does not share the soft glow that softens the details of so many family histories; its light approaches a glare. For, when I chose to write about upper-white women in Virginia, I knew I was making a choice in many ways alien for me; I have always been more interested in the lives of the people, largely women, who according to our culture do not count.”
— Sallie Bingham
Sallie's Latest
Galentine’s Day and Our Great Leaders
My only problem with this pleasantly mad-cap idea is that it seems to focus on friendships between ladies......
Caught in the Act
One of the most notable differences between women and men in public life is we seem to know better how to avoid scandal....
Cuba… What Can I Say? (2)
I have more questions, most of them unanswered, which adds a piquancy to the beautiful aquamarine seas through which we are traveling off the south coast of Cuba....
Cuba… What Can I Say?
I feel an affinity with what I can see of Cuban life today and what I know this island had gone through....
Making Money off Poison
The cliche, "All great fortunes are founded on a crime" is true more often than not....
Mary Oliver Is Dead
Her gift seems simple and yet it is neither simple nor common but the "confiding intimacy" of her great poems....
The Work of Rose B. Simpson: Woman Warrior
Rose Simpson's warrior women become women of flesh and blood... this is a fearsome prospect for some, maybe many, women....
Inhabited by Poetry
Beginnings of anything are always inspiring, more than middle or ends, which tend to be tedious....
Start by Getting Them in the Room
The opening of the U.S Congress, two days ago, showed us what happens when we are in the room....
The Silver Swan
The Next Step
How to live on nothing is a question the publishers have not condescended to consider....
Celebrities
These days if a writer is smitten with the idea of writing a new book—a new analysis—of any supposedly well-known person, the obstacles to her research will be enormous....
Death of Ten Thousand Pricks
Scheduled to be published in August, 2018, The Silver Swan is now delayed till sometime in 2019....
I Want It to Be Said
By now we all know that the discrimination that afflicts one group afflicts all of us....
Doris Duke: Love, Sex, Power and Money
Does it matter that she never found her match in terms of money, status and achievement?...
I Didn’t Sing for a Year
I remember being amazed when my young granddaughters and their friends listened, apparently unperturbed, to hip hop verses that demonize or degrade women....
Music Hath Charms
I grew up with almost no music at all. Music, after all, is not words and only words counted in that world....
Doris Duke and the Sea
Both Doris and Alleda developed physical strength, courage and confidence battling the waves on the beaches at Newport....
Doris Duke Goes to Press
My relief in learning that “The Silver Swan” will be published next June prompts me to rejoice like old-time newspaper editors when the daily edition was put to bed....
Doris Duke
New Year’s Day
I am wishing all of you, friends, acquaintances and strangers, who are kind enough to read these thoughts, the most beneficial, peaceful and fruitful new year—a cold winter with lots of snow, a spring full of bloom....
Doris Duke and Me: Dancing
Doris Duke practiced with Martha Graham’s company in New York and proudly wore their black satin jacket with her name and the company’s name on the back....
Doris Duke in Pictures and the Deconstruction of the Past
My chapters about Doris’ war-time service are some of the most revealing, and most controversial, in my upcoming biography....
The Uses of Scandal
Next week, as I begin to unravel the many strands of Doris Duke’s life, I must work hard to clear away my prejudices....
Doris Duke Moves into the Limelight
I am now reading, and occasionally wrestling with, what might be call the collision—or the creative cooperation—of two minds, essentially different: the mind of the writer and the mind of the editor....
I Stand Corrected…
My granddaughter told me last evening that she in fact DID NOT WATCH “Sex in the City” as I had assumed, but “Desperate Housewives.”...
Girls of Summer
If she can move like this playing paddle ball, surely she can act with equal skill, grace, and assurance in a board room, a corporate office, or an artist’s studio....
Ten Favorites: On To The Next
Now that my newest book, Mending: New and Selected Short Stories is reaching its readers, I find myself in a rather delightful quandary....
The Self-Realization Fellowship and Doris Duke
If there is a chance, and I think there is one, that Doris was touched and perhaps even changed by her connection, whatever it may prove to have been, with the Self-Realization Fellowship, her miseries would have been if not reduced, placed in a realistic context, uniting her with her fellows....
Writing
Mary Oliver Is Dead
Her gift seems simple and yet it is neither simple nor common but the "confiding intimacy" of her great poems....
Inhabited by Poetry
Beginnings of anything are always inspiring, more than middle or ends, which tend to be tedious....
The Next Step
How to live on nothing is a question the publishers have not condescended to consider....
Celebrities
These days if a writer is smitten with the idea of writing a new book—a new analysis—of any supposedly well-known person, the obstacles to her research will be enormous....
A Nation Afraid
I've been wondering why we in the blessed U.S. seem so frightened of just about everything....
Philip Roth Is Gone
As a young writer publishing my first novel at the time of Roth's debut, I wondered even then why this gentle, pastel novel received so much attention....
To Be of Use: The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection
A great collection is always based on a passion. It is not random. It grows from a strong root....
Women
Galentine’s Day and Our Great Leaders
My only problem with this pleasantly mad-cap idea is that it seems to focus on friendships between ladies......
Caught in the Act
One of the most notable differences between women and men in public life is we seem to know better how to avoid scandal....
Start by Getting Them in the Room
The opening of the U.S Congress, two days ago, showed us what happens when we are in the room....
Bare-Breasted
Let's begin the New Year with a salute to an astonishing woman, Agnes Sorel, the "acknowledged mistress" of the French king Charles the Seventh....
Victoria’s Secret Goes Down
I look for changes that seem small, even ridiculously small, and yet may herald changed attitudes in this slow-moving country of ours....
Single Blessedness
My self is precious, and it needs and deserves nourishing as the center of my life, not an outcropping....
Do Right Woman: Aretha Franklin
No one can appreciate the depth of Aretha Franklin's influence as clearly as women, like me, who came of age in the Feminist Movement in the late 1960's....
New Mexico
The Welcoming of Friends
Over the twenty-seven years I've lived in Santa Fe, many people have come and many people have gone....
The Mustard Seed
As a child, I planted seeds every spring and knew how likely it was that, when I forgot to water them, they would never spring from the dry earth....
What Part
Sometimes I'm grateful for the old Roman Catholic doctrine of Original Sin that held there is no innocent being, even a newborn, since Eve's fall....
The Ruts Remain
Bells are ringing all over Santa Fe and the Plaza is blindingly bright with tree-strung lights......
Pip in Winter
My black dog Pip, now three and a half years old, fears not cold, snow or rain. For him it is all an adventure....
First Snow
I will always miss the sensation of diving off the slope, at ten thousand feet, and sailing down the longest run with big curving sweeps of my skis....
My Azure State
I have lived here for twenty-seven years, and in all that time, I’ve felt and seen a slow progression in state politics toward justice. ...
Apples
Like the medieval desert mendicants, holy men who lived their lives in remote caves and were sometimes fed by ravens, Will had long ago lost any interest in possessions, or any taste for food....
From Dream to Reality
It is finished after almost two years of work, with many changes—some of them drastic, others simply disappointing—along the way....
Kentucky
My Mother’s Cookbook
I did make some progress... although probably my greatest accomplishment was mayonnaise made in a blender....
Spring Planting
The Horsetooth Corn will grow vigorously to remind us all that fertility, growth and abundance is still possible....
A Few of My Favorite Things
I am particularly blessed in these special places that seem to have come into my life by chance or luck but are in fact the material manifestations of prayer....
17 Favorites of 2017
As this year comes to a close (some might say thankfully), I've once again chosen my most popular posts of 2017, based on visits, comments, Tweets and Facebook likes....
Adventurer / Adventuresses
The threats we still face from the dominant culture, the insults and violence, have not stopped us. We still go for the outer air....
Dogs, Horses—And Fish
“Don’t feel sorry for The Teaser,” our guide told us, though it seemed to me more likely we might feel sorry for the mares....
Claiming the Broom
The witch with her broom is also the woman tossed up in a basket—the high flyer, the visionary, terrifying to many... and more necessary now than ever....
The Best Photos of the Year
These are my favorite photos of the last year, with links to their blog posts (if any)—Sallie Little brother made up for Christmas play, my next book…: This Writer’s Life The Pond, Santa Fe, NM: Over the Hills and a Great Way Off The Little House on the Prairie: The Little House on the Prairie ...
Your 16 Favorites of 2016
As this memorable year comes to an end, I’ve chosen my sixteen most popular posts of the year, based on visits, comments, Tweets and Facebook likes. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction to know that I’ve been able to cover a lot of ground with these posts and in a satisfactory way. I ...
My Family
The Mustard Seed
As a child, I planted seeds every spring and knew how likely it was that, when I forgot to water them, they would never spring from the dry earth....
My Mother’s Cookbook
I did make some progress... although probably my greatest accomplishment was mayonnaise made in a blender....
Apples
Like the medieval desert mendicants, holy men who lived their lives in remote caves and were sometimes fed by ravens, Will had long ago lost any interest in possessions, or any taste for food....
17 Favorites of 2017
As this year comes to a close (some might say thankfully), I've once again chosen my most popular posts of 2017, based on visits, comments, Tweets and Facebook likes....
Acting Christmas
Something in our basic human nature calls for ritual celebration with other people, even if the other people are strangers....
Tiny Little Things
The value of the collection I keep on the top of my bureau seems suddenly, mysteriously clear....
Life Is What Leaps
How to keep a spark of hope alive in our so-called democratic process? How not to drop into numbness and apathy?...
Eating Alone
Last night I noticed how a repetitive task—each leaf pulled off the stalk, dipped in French dressing, and eaten—demands a particular sort of attention....