Discipline: Literature – nonfiction

Gwen Strauss

Discipline: Literature – nonfiction
Region: Ménerbes, FRANCE
MacDowell Fellowships: 2024

Gwen Strauss is an award-winning children’s book author and poet, whose titles include Trail of Stones, The Night Shimmy, Ruth and the Green Book, and The Hiding Game. The Nine, a work of historical non-fiction, was released in 2021 and has been translated into 16 languages, as well as being under option for a TV series. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared in numerous places including The New Republic, New England Review, Kenyon Review, London Sunday Times, and Catapult.

Since 2005, she has lived in Southern France, where she works as the executive director of the Dora Maar House, an artist residency program and cultural center. She is currently working on another creative nonfiction book

At MacDowell, Strauss completed the manuscript, Milena & Margarete, A Love Story in Ravensbrück, about the extraordinary love story of Milena Jesenská and Margarete Buber-Neumann in the Nazi concentration camp of Ravensbrück. It is scheduled to be released with St. Martin's Press in 2025.

Studios

Schelling

Gwen Strauss worked in the Schelling studio.

Marian MacDowell funded construction of this studio the year that the organization was established and the first artists arrived for residency. It was called Bark Studio until 1933, when it was renamed in honor of Ernest Schelling, a composer, pianist, and orchestral leader who served as president of what was then called the Edward MacDowell…

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