Sallie Bingham

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You are here: Home / Kentucky / High School Reunion

High School Reunion

May 23rd, 2011 by Sallie Bingham in Kentucky 2 Comments

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High School Reunion

SO HERE WE ARE after all these years—more than fifty—gathered together for the second time since we graduated from the private all-girls school in Louisville, Kentucky—before the Civil Rights Movement, before the Women’s Movement, before Vietnam and all the wars that have followed it.

Of the fourteen that graduated together, several had been at the school since third grade. Now, two have died, one is ill, and two others couldn’t come for various reasons, but the nine who congregated on a beautiful spring day in Kentucky found, at once, that we were still connected, viscerally, not only by our memories of the amazing teachers who led us on to college, the games we played, the mischief we enjoyed—but by the amazing women we have become.

That school was the precious beginning, perhaps not appreciated at the time, ,that launched us into independent lives as teachers, community volunteers, wives and mothers. We found our footing, perilous at times, in a world that was changing so rapidly even daughters of comfortable southern homes would be deeply affected. None of us now could sing the hymn that was part of our graduation ceremony, based on a Kipling poem that includes the line “lesser breeds without the law”. Nor can we easily recall the Latin we learned, or the Latin we sung with its line that seems more appropriate now than it was when we were eighteen:

SO HERE WE ARE after all these years—more than fifty—gathered together for the second time since we graduated from the private all-girls school in Louisville, Kentucky—before the Civil Rights Movement, before the Women’s Movement, before Vietnam and all the wars that have followed it.

“Let us rejoice in our youth now that we are young. After youth comes troubling age, and in the end the dust will have us…” (A free translation)

Raised on precepts that sprang from the 19th century—honor, obedience, thrift, hard work—we have found various ways to root that faith in the fertile ground of our changing lives in the 21st century.

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In Kentucky Louisville Friends

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Brenda Wilson Wooley says

    May 23rd, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    There are no friends like old friends!

    Reply
  2. Elizabeth Oakes says

    May 27th, 2011 at 8:43 am

    Who would want to live in any other time but ours? To see — and even be a part of — all these changes —WOW!

    Reply

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Watch Sallie

Taken By The Shawnee

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Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
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This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
Taken by the Shawnee Reading

Taken by the Shawnee Reading

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This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

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Recently, I was reflecting with my good friend John on the fruits of the past five years. I’m so very grateful for all my readers who keep me and my books alive! https://buff.ly/NgnRjO3 #DorisDuke #TheSilverSwan #Treason #LittleBrother #TakenByTheShawnee #HowDaddyLostHisEar

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It's important not to be ploughed under by the chaos and intemperance in #WashingtonDC. We don't live in that swamp, and we don't need to allow our hopes and dreams to be drowned out by the noise. "Reasons to Hope": https://buff.ly/Z8lH33D

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Sallie Bingham's latest is a captivating account of ancestor's ordeal
Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

“I felt she was with me” during the process of writing the book, Bingham says. “I felt I wasn’t writing anything that would have seemed to her false or unreal.”

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