Discipline: Literature

Frances Newman

Discipline: Literature
MacDowell Fellowships: 1926, 1927
Frances Newman (1883-1928) was a Modernist novelist, translator, and librarian who critically examined the difficulties faced by women in the American South. Newman began her career writing essays on contemporary novelists for the Carnegie Library bulletin and book reviews for newspapers in Atlanta and New York; witty and astute, these drew the attention of critic H. L. Mencken and novelist James Branch Cabell. Her first published book was a collection of stories translated from five languages entitled The Short Story's Mutations (1924). In 1924, she also won an O. Henry Memorial Award for her short story "Rachel and Her Children." Recommendations from Mencken and novelist Sherwood Anderson helped her get a residency in 1926 at MacDowell where she completed her first published novel, The Hard-Boiled Virgin (1926). It was a bestseller despite (or because of) being banned in Boston due to sexual content, and its success enabled Newman to devote herself to writing full-time. Cabell called it a "shining minor masterpiece." A year later, she returned to MacDowell to work on her second novel, Dead Lovers Are Faithful Lovers (1928), which was also banned in Boston for erotic content. Newman's papers — including manuscripts, correspondence, a scrapbook, and miscellaneous printed matter — are held by the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Studios

Mansfield

Frances Newman worked in the Mansfield studio.

The Helen Coolidge Mansfield Studio was donated by graduates of the Mansfield War Service Classes for Reconstruction Aides. Helen Mansfield helped found the New York MacDowell Club. The small, shingled frame structure with stone foundation was originally fronted on the west side by a neat white picket fence and gate, a garden, and a stone pathway…

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