Sallie Bingham (born January 22, 1937) is an American author, playwright, poet, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist. She is the eldest daughter of

Barry Bingham, Sr. George Barry Bingham Sr. (February 10, 1906 – August 15, 1988) was the patriarch of a family that dominated local media in Louisville for several decades in the 20th century. Family and career George Barry Bingham Sr. was born on February 10 ...

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in certai ...

of the Bingham family of

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. Sallie Bingham's first novel was published by

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

in 1961. It was followed by four collections of short stories; her latest, published by

Sarabande Books Sarabande Books is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1994. It is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with an office in New York City. Sarabande publishes contemporary poetry and nonfiction. Sarabande is a literary press whos ...

in October 2011, is titled ''Mending: New and Selected Stories''. She has also published six additional novels, three collections of poetry, numerous plays (produced off-Broadway and regionally), and a family memoir, ''Passion and Prejudice'' (

Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

, 1989). Her short stories have appeared in ''

The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', ''

New Letters ''New Letters'', the name it has been published under since 1970, is one of the oldest literary magazines in the United States and continues to publish award-winning poems and fiction. The magazine is based in Kansas City, Missouri. History and ...

'', ''Plainswoman'', ''Plainsong'', '' Greensboro Review'', ''Negative Capability'', ''The Connecticut Review'', and ''

Southwest Review The ''Southwest Review'' is a literary journal published quarterly, based on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas, Texas. It is the third oldest literary quarterly in the United States. The current editor-in-chief is Greg Browndervi ...

'', among others, and have been anthologized in ''Best American Short Stories'', ''Forty Best Stories from Mademoiselle'', ''Prize Stories: The

O. Henry Award The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry. The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty best ...

s'', and ''The Harvard Advocate Centennial Anthology''. She has received fellowships from

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

, the

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...

, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Bingham has worked as a book editor for ''

The Courier-Journal ''The Courier-Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), is the highest circulation newspaper in Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett and billed as "Part of the ''USA Today'' Net ...

'' in

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

and has been a director of the

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the National Book Critics C ...

. 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. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Bingham has been married three times: to publisher A. Whitney Ellsworth, attorney Michael Iovenko, and contractor Tim Peters. She has three sons—film producer Barry Ellsworth, William Iovenko, and writer Christopher Iovenko—and five grandchildren. She currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Bibliography

;Memoir *''Passion and Prejudice'' (Knopf, 1989) *''The Blue Box: Three Lives in Letters'' (Sarabande Books, 2014) ;Short stories *''The Touching Hand'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1967) *''The Way It Is Now'' (Viking Press, 1972) *''Transgressions'' (Sarabande Books, 2002) *''Red Car'' (Sarabande Books, 2008) *''Mending: New and Selected Stories'' (Sarabande Books, 2011) ;Novels *''After Such Knowledge'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1960) *''Small Victories'' (Zoland Books, 1992) *''Upstate'' (Permanent Press, 1993) *''Matron of Honor'' (Zoland Books, 1994) *''Straight Man'' (Zoland Books, 1996) *''Cory's Feast'' (Sunstone Press, 2005) *''Nick of Time'' (Sunstone Press, 2007) ;Poetry *''The High Cost of Denying Rivers Their Floodplain'' (privately published, 1995) *''The Hub of the Miracle'' (Sunstone Press, 2006) *''If in Darkness'' (Tebot Bach, 2010) ;Plays *''Milk of Paradise'', two children adrift in a confusing world of distracted adults and too much poetry (The Women's Project and Productions, NY, 1980) *''Couvade'', a one-man show in which the actor gives birth on stage ( Actors Theatre, Louisville, KY, 1981) *''Paducah'', a comedy about a love triangle in a small Kentucky town, in which the two women become best friends (The Women's Project and Productions, NY, 1983) *''In the Presence'', based on ''The Wall Between'' by renowned civil rights worker Anne McCarty Braden (

Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/h ...

, Baltimore, MD, 1984; Mill Mountain Theatre, Roanoke, VA, 1986) *''Hopscotch'', the history of four well-known Kentucky women, including the truths that are often left out (Horse Cave Theater, KY, 1986) *''The Awakening'', an adaptation of the novel by

Kate Chopin Kate Chopin (, also ; born Katherine O'Flaherty; February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century femini ...

(Horse Cave Theater, KY, 1988) *''Treason'', about how Ezra Pound betrayed the three women who loved him while on trial for betraying his country (Perry Street Theatre, NY, 2006) *''A Dangerous Personality'', about the renowned mystic and founder of

Theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion ...

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 ...

(The Women's Project, NY, 2008) ;Anthologies *''Best American Short Stories: 1959'', eds. Martha Foley and David Burnett (Houghton Mifflin, 1959) *''40 Best Stories from Mademoiselle, 1935–1960'', eds. Cyrilly Abels and Margarita G. Smith (Gollancz, 1960) *''The Harvard Advocate Centennial Anthology'', ed. Jonathan D. Culler (Shenkman Books, 1966) *''Identity: Stories for this Generation'', ed. Katherine Hondius (Scott, Foresman and Co., 1966) *''Prize Stories 1966: The O. Henry Awards'', eds. Richard Poirier and William Miller Abrahams (Doubleday, 1966) *''Solo: Women on Woman Alone'', eds. Linda Hamalian and Leo Hamalian (Delacorte Press, 1977) *''Here's the Story: Fiction with Heart'', ed. Morty Sklar (The Spirit That Moves Us Press, 1985) *''American Wives: 30 Short Stories by Women'', ed. Barbara Solomon (Signet, 1987) *''New Stories by Southern Women'', ed. Mary Ellis Gibson (University of South Carolina Press, 1989) *''Playwriting Women: 7 Plays from the Women's Project and Productions'', ed. Julia Miles (Heinemann Drama, 1993) *''Home and Beyond: An Anthology of Kentucky Short Stories'', ed. Morris A. Grubbs (The University Press of Kentucky, 2001) *''I to I, Life Writing by Kentucky Feminists'', eds. Elizabeth Oakes and Jane Olmsted (Western Kentucky University, 2004) *''The Kentucky Anthology: Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State'', ed. Wade Hall (University Press of Kentucky, 2005) *''Imagine What It's Like, A Literature and Medicine Anthology'', ed. Ruth L. Nadelhaft (University of Hawaii Press, 2008) *''World Premieres from Horse Cave: Plays by Kentucky Writers'', eds. Liz Bussey Fentress and Warren Hammack (MotesBooks, 2009) Nonfiction * ''The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke'' (

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...

, 2020)

References

External links

Sallie Bingham official web site
* ttp://www.kfw.org The Kentucky Foundation for Womenbr>New York Society Library TributeAmazon.com's Sallie Bingham page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bingham, Sallie 1937 births 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American memoirists American women memoirists American feminist writers Sallie Writers from Louisville, Kentucky Living people American women dramatists and playwrights Radcliffe College alumni 20th-century American women writers The Courier-Journal people Kentucky women writers Kentucky women activists Kentucky women philanthropists Louisville Collegiate School alumni 21st-century American women