An index of websites related to the work of authors Lucy Ellman and Sandra Cisneros was assembled as part of the research conducted by Márcia Lemos within the framework of her postdoctoral project titled “A Consciousness of One’s Own: Mapping English Modernist Legacies in the 21st Century Writings of Two American Female Writers – Sandra Cisneros and Lucy Ellmann” (October 2022 – August 2023, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto).
The project aimed to address 21st-century societal challenges and contribute to an inclusive and informed society, by investigating the presence and the consequences of modernist legacies in the writings of both writers.
Webpages on Cisneros and Ellmann abound, but many of them only lead to platforms that sell the authors’ books or articles that cannot be accessed freely.
For readers who want to know more about Lucy Ellmann, Sandra Cisneros and their work, the respective selections of open-access sources are provided below:
Retrieved from Citáty slavných osobností
Sandra Cisneros was born in 1954, in Chicago, USA, to a Mexican family. She was the only girl in a family of seven offspring and her desire to challenge male dominance inspired the creation of many memorable female characters and narrators. Cisneros’ A House of My Own: Stories from My Life (2015, essays) and the dual text Martita, I Remember You / Martita, te recuerdo: A Story in English and Spanish (2021, fiction) were the main focus of Márcia Lemos’ post-doctoral research, but the present index of sites includes information on other Cisneros’ texts as well.
For readers who want to know more about Sandra Cisneros and her work, a selection of open-access sources is provided below.
Archive
The Sandra Cisneros Papers spanning 60 years of her life and career are part of The Wittliff Collections, at Texas State University. The acquisition happened in 2015 and this guide to the archive includes administrative information, a description of the collection arrangements and a timeline. In addition, visitors to the website have access to a complete box and folder inventory in PDF (246-pages long).
Biographies
Biography of Sandra Cisneros at the National Women’s History Museum website, written in 2019, by Kerri Lee Alexander, fellow of the National Women’s History Museum, an innovative online museum which aims to contribute to a more inclusive society by providing scholarly contents and filling in the gaps about women’s decisive presence in the American society, past and present.
Biography of Sandra Cisneros at the Poetry Foundation, where a number of other news articles on Cisneros and her work can also be found. No poems available, though.
Short biography of Sandra Cisneros and a selection of poems by Best Poems Encyclopedia. The list includes: “Abuelito Who”; “Black Lace Bra Kind of Woman”, “Dulzura”, “Love Poem For The Non-Believer”, “You Called Me Corazón”, among others.
Biography of Sandra Cisneros by the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Guides
A guide to Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street (1984) written by Peter Trachtenberg, Penguin Random House.
A guide to Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street (1984) created by LitCharts, the same team behind SparkNotes.
A guide to Cisneros’ works, namely The House on Mango Street (1984) and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), available at Literariness.org.
Biography of Sandra Cisneros and guides to The House on Mango Street (1984) and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), available at GrAdeSaver.
A guide to Cisneros’ works The House on Mango Street (1984) and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991) by CliffsNotes. Includes a full glossary, essay questions and a quiz among many other sections.
Interviews
Interview by Yxta Maya Murray, The New Yorker, September 21, 2022. In this interview Cisneros talks about the creative process behind her collection of poems Woman Without Shame (2022). She also addresses other relevant issues, such as sexuality and desire in women over 60, the move to Mexico, the adaptation of her book The House on Mango Street into opera and film, etc.
Interview by Natalie Escobar, NPR, July 27, 2021.The importance of owning a house and conquering one’s independence and freedom are the main topics of the conversation between Escobar and Cisneros.
Interview by Gayle Elliot, The Missouri Review, March 1, 2002. Cisneros’ vision of the writing process is the main topic of her conversion with Elliot.
Interview given to The New York Times, on September 2, 2001, in which Cisneros reveals more about her reading habits and book preferences.
Interview by Mary B. W. Tabor, The New York Times, January 7, 1993. On this occasion Cisneros explains how she became a voice for Latinos and wishes more Hispanic writers were published as this could be of extreme importance for both the Latino and the white communities.
Interview given to The New York Times, on May 26, 1991, following the publication of Woman Hollering Creek, a collection of short stories by Cisneros.
Official Website
Sandra Cisneros’ official website is mostly bilingual (English and Spanish), although English is the predominant idiom in some sections. Besides other interesting features like an homage page, the website includes a Letter section in which the writer periodically addresses her readers.
Retrieved from LitHub
Lucy Ellmann was born in 1956, in Evanston, USA, but she has been living in Britain since her teen years. Her texts invariably cast a satirical look at life in general and the American way of life in particular, as Ducks, Newburyport (2019, fiction) and Things Are Against Us (2021, essays) perfectly illustrate. Furthermore, Ellmann’s texts deal with such relevant questions as gender gaps, the joys and sorrows of motherhood, the blurring limits of private and public space, misinformation and fake news, consumerism, and climate change, among other timely themes.
For readers who want to know more about Lucy Ellmann and her work, a selection of open-access sources is provided below.
Biographies
Biography of Lucy Ellmann presented by the British Council, section on Writers.
A funny and alternative biography of Lucy Ellmann by The Baffler, an American left-wing printed and digital magazine of art and criticism. Besides the author’s biography, readers can find numerous essays by Ellmann, published between 2015 and 2022.
Interviews and news articles
Interview by Nahlah Ayed, the host of IDEAS, at CBC radio, March 24, 2022, to read and/or listen to.
Interview by Rachel Léon, Chicago Review of Books, October 1, 2021, following the publication of Ellmann’s collection of essays Things Are Against Us. The juxtaposition of themes in Ellmann’s fiction and nonfiction is one of the main topics of conversation in León’s interview which was conducted via email.
News article by Baya Simons, Financial Times, July 30, 2021, following the publication of Ellmann’s Things Are Against Us. Simons concludes that “Ellmann is one of the few writers producing modernist work for the contemporary moment”.
Lucy Ellmann talks about things worth seeing, in an article suggestively titled “On my radar: Lucy Ellmann’s cultural highlights”, published on July 10, 2021, by The Guardian. The six topics included (fiction, comedy, art, opera, film and nature) are indicative of the writer’s interests.
Opinion essay by Michelle Ruiz, Vogue, December 11, 2019. Ruiz comments on a series of interviews following the publication of Ducks, Newburyport as Ellmann’s heavy criticism of motherhood brought about an equally strong response by readers and critics.
Opinion essay by Michelle Ruiz, Vogue, December 11, 2019. Ruiz comments on a series of interviews following the publication of Ducks, Newburyport as Ellmann’s heavy criticism of motherhood brought about an equally strong response by readers and critics.
Lucy Ellmann reads a fragment from her novel Ducks, Newburyport at CBC radio, October 11, 2019, and illustrates the technique of stream of consciousness used to express the flow of her narrator’s mind.
Interview by Nora Krug, The Independent, September 29, 2019. Among other interesting topics, the interview revolves around Ellmann’s criticism of the American society and her peculiar vision as she is simultaneously an insider and an outsider. Ellmann was born in the USA but moved to the UK when she was a teenager. She is married to another American writer and, as she confesses in the interview, in her head she never left America.
Interview by Lori Feathers, Literary Hub, September 9, 2019. In addition to other interesting topics, Feathers urges Ellmann to talk about form and content vis-à-vis her recently published novel Ducks, Newburyport.
Interview given to The Guardian, August 16, 2019. On this occasion, Ellmann reveals more about her reading habits and book preferences.
Interview by Alison Flood, The Guardian, February 9, 2013, which focuses on Mimi, first novel by Ellmann told from a male perspective.
News article on Lucy Ellmann, by The Irish Times, March 19, 1998, following the release of Man or Mango, Ellmann’s third novel. Besides the novel itself, the article focuses on many biographical data concerning Ellmann.
Reviews
Review of Lucy Ellmann’s Things Are Against Us, by Catherine Taylor, The Guardian, July 3, 2021. Taylor presents Ellmann as Virginia Woolf’s literary heir.
Review of Lucy Ellmann’s Things Are Against Us, by Hephzibah Anderson, The Guardian, June 28, 2021, which presents an interesting overview not only of Ellmann’s collection of essays but her work and style in general.
Review of Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport, by Alex Preston, The Guardian, July 15, 2019. Preston’s technique to introduce the novel is quite interesting as he mimics the strategy adopted by Ellmann in her own text to address “the chaos of consciousness”, that is, he writes his first paragraph without full stops and adopts the phrase “the fact that” to initiate every new statement. The point is making readers realise how demanding but equally rewarding Ellmann’s novel can be.
Review of Lucy Ellmann’s Mimi, by Laura Miller, The Guardian, February 15, 2013, which presents some interesting points on Ellmann’s first male narrator.