Persia Woolley (November 8, 1935 – October 3, 2017) was an American author, perhaps best known for her
Guinevere trilogy The Guinevere trilogy is a trilogy of historical novels written by Persia Woolley about the Arthurian legend from the first-person perspective of King Arthur's wife, Guinevere
Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), als ...
.
She also has written a number of works on writing, such as ''How to Write and Sell Historical Fiction'' (2000).
Works
In the
historical fiction
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ...
genre, Woolley wrote the ''
Guinevere trilogy The Guinevere trilogy is a trilogy of historical novels written by Persia Woolley about the Arthurian legend from the first-person perspective of King Arthur's wife, Guinevere
Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), als ...
'', about
King Arthur's wife,
Guinevere
Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First me ...
. This trilogy comprises ''
Child of the Northern Spring
''Child of the Northern Spring'' is the first novel in Persia Woolley's Guinevere trilogy, about the Arthurian legend. The novel is written in first person perspective narrated by Guinevere in the form of a frame narrative.
Plot summary
The no ...
'' (1987), ''
Queen of the Summer Stars
''Queen of the Summer Stars'' is a 1991 novel by Persia Woolley and is the second volume of the Guinevere trilogy that relate the Arthurian legend from the perspective of Guinevere. The novel introduces Lancelot and also outlines King Arthur's v ...
'' (1990) and ''
Guinevere: The Legend in Autumn'' (1993).
Her non-fiction work includes two books on
divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...
, ''
Creative Survival for Single Mothers'' (1974) and ''
The Custody Handbook'' (1979).
Personal life
Woolley grew up in
Auburn, California
Auburn is a city in and the county seat of Placer County, California, United States. Its population was 13,776 during the 2020 census. Auburn is known for its California Gold Rush history and is registered as a California Historical Landmark.
A ...
as the only child of Lois and William Higman.
[ She studied architecture at ]University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, and married James P. Woolley, an engineer in 1956. They had two children before divorcing in 1958; Woolley's experience as a single mother led her to write her first two books, ''Creative Survival for Single Mothers'' (1974) and ''The Custody Handbook'' (1979).[ She married Dr. Edwjard Garwin in 1978.
Persia Woolley died October 3, 2017, in Sebastopol, CA, USA, at the age of eighty one.]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Woolley, Persia
20th-century American novelists
American self-help writers
American historical novelists
American women novelists
Writers of modern Arthurian fiction
University of California, Berkeley people
1935 births
2017 deaths
People from Auburn, California