Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with writer Danielle Dutton about her novel, "Margaret the First," which dramatizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, the eccentric 17th-century Duchess. Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and utopian science fiction at a time when “being a writer” was not an option open to women. As one of the Queen’s attendants and the daughter of prominent Royalists, she was exiled to France when King Charles I was overthrown. She met and married William Cavendish, who encouraged her writing and her desire for a career. After the War Margaret became known as “Mad Madge,” an original tabloid celebrity. She was also the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London.
Danielle Dutton is an assistant professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. Her fiction has appeared in magazines such as Harper’s, BOMB, Fence, and Noon. She is the author of Attempts at a Life, SPRAW L (a finalist for the Believer Book Award). In 2015, Siglio Press released Here Comes Kitty: A Comic Opera, an artist’s book with texts by Dutton and images by Richard Kraft. Dutton holds a PhD from the University of Denver, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before joining the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, she taught in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa and was the book designer at Dalkey Archive Press. In 2010, Dutton founded the small press Dorothy, a publishing project, which now offers an internship to one MFA writing student each year.
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