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Sexton and Kumin were close friends who didn't mind being photographed with their typewriters:
MAXINE KUMIN
ANNE SEXTON
And, as a bonus, Madonna's homage to Sexton:The New Yorker wrote of My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, "Aiming to construct a new mode of lesbian history, the author combines research into the sexual life of Carson McCullers with an account of her own coming-out experiences. McCullers was drawn to the 'misfits' of Southern society, including black, gay or disabled people; she never hid her love of women, and surrounded herself with queer artists such as Tennessee Williams, Gypsy Rose Lee and Paul and Jane Bowles. Shapland, who believes that McCullers has been retroactively closeted by peers and biographers, asserts that 'queer embodiment, like Carson’s, like mine, requires a presence, a negotiation with publicness'. Accordingly, she finds herself 'hunting for lesbians' in the literary world - an investigation that yields an unpretentious, moving record of love at the margins."
As with Sexton and Kumin, McCullers, Williams (most especially) and Gypsy Rose Lee were fond of being photographed with typewriters. So that's our excuse for running these images on this day. In the photo at the top of the post, the burlesque dancer is seen in her trailer-dressing room during her Royal American Shows traveling carnival engagement in Memphis, Tennessee, in May 1949. She dictated letters to her secretary Brandy Bryant, who also performed in the show:
GYPSY ROSE LEE
Gypsy Rose Lee at work on her memoir in 1956:
CARSON McCULLERS
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