Monthly Archives: April, 2017
Z for Zaha Hadid – extraordinary architect, #AtoZ Blog Challenge
Dongdaemun Design Plaza at night, Central Seoul, by Warren Whyte Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was a fabulously futuristic architest – one tutor at her architectural school, Professor Koolhaas, described her at her graduation as “a planet in her own orbit’, another as being the most talented pupil he had ever taught, and as ‘having spectacular vision’. …
Y is for Malala Yousafzai, #AtoZBlogChallenge
Wikimedia Commons This entry is by my guest blogger Michaela Morgan, one of my fellow authors of Reaching the Stars, Poems about Extraordinary Women and Girls, also by me and Jan Dean, published by Macmillan. This poem and the entry are found in the book. . Malala Yousafzai was born on 2 July 2 1997 in the Swat district …
X is for X Ray – Marie Curie, #AtoZ Challenge
By Nobel foundation [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons . This entry is taken from my book, Reaching for the Stars, Poems about Extraordinary Women and Girls, written with Jan Dean and Michaela Morgan, published by Macmillan. . Marie Curie was born Marie Sklodowska in 1867in Poland. She went to Sorbonne University, Paris, when she moved in with …
W is for Madam C. J. Walker, First Female Self-Made Millionaire in U.S., #AtoZ Challenge
By Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.) (photographers). [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons . Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove, the last of six children, on December 23rd, 1867, in Louisiana. Sarah’s parents and four older brothers and one sister were slaves on Robert W. Burney’s Madison Parish plantation, but Sarah was born a free child, as …
V is for Remedios Varo – anarchist, philosopher, feminist, para-surrealist painter! #AtoZ Challenge
. Remedios Varo was born in 1908 in the small town of Angles in Spain, and developed a style of painting that was a wonderful para-surrealist excursion into her imagination. Surrealism is a a style of art and literature which started around 1924, after the first world war. Surrealist painting often contains images that are non-rational; …
U is for Ursula K Le Guin, Author, #AtoZ Challenge
Ursula Le Guin image by Gorthian, by CC Licence. . This special entry is again by one of my fellow authors of my new book Reaching the Stars, Poems about Extraordinary Women and Girls – the wonderful and talented Jan Dean! The Wizard of Earthsea was one of my favourite books. . Ursula Kroeber Le …
T is for Sister Rosetta Tharpe #A-Z Blog Challenge
Sister Rosetta Tharpe – AMAZING! She was born Rosetta Nubin on a cotton plant in Arkansas, on the 20th of March, 1915, and died in Philadelphia after a long career as a musician, in 1973. Her parents were cotton pickers. Little is known about her father except he was a singer – her mother also was …
S is for Murasaki Shikibu, author of first novel ever in 1021 #AtoZ Challenge
Amazingly, this is part of the original manuscript of the first novel EVER to be written, in 1021. It was written by Japanese noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. The story contains 400 characters, whose lives are followed as they grow older, without an actual plot but with events, rather like a modern soap opera, showing the …
R is for Ruby Bridges, first black child in a white school, #AtoZ Challenge
By Uncredited DOJ photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Today’s blog is by the other fellow author of my book, Reaching for the Stars, Poems about Extraordinary Women and Girls, the wonderful and talented Michaela Morgan: . The poem My First Day at School, by Michaela Morgan, commemorates Ruby Bridges, who, at the age of six, …
Q is for Queen Æthelflæd first female ruler in England #AtoZ Challenge
Image by Hel-Hama, by CC licence. . Æthelflæd (pronounced Ethel-fled) was an Anglo-Saxon princess born around 870, the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, who was the King of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex. In those days there was no overall ruler or Monarch of England. The map above shows Wessex as it was being claimed …
lizbrownlee - poet 