History Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Shelley Blanton-Stroud

Barbie–smart, funny, silly, touching, authentic and fanciful

I spent untold impressionable childhood hours playing with a Barbie doll, the protagonist of Greta Gerwig's new blockbuster film. Neither [...]

A picture's worth a thousand words. Have you heard about the Picture Superiority Effect? Here's the short version. The brain processes pictures [...]

I’ve been down some research rabbit holes lately. Usually, it starts with a pile of books, ranging from time and [...]

I'm thrilled to join Archivist James Scott 12-1:30 December 3 for a discussion about the Sackamenna Kid: Herb Caen. We’ll [...]

I retired from teaching in 2021. One thing I really miss is talking about CONNECTIONS between fiction and life and [...]

I first learned about Betty Reid Soskin (above, in a photograph by Frederic Aranda for National Geographic Traveler) while visiting the [...]

I used to run The Banned Book Club for teenagers. We only read books that had been banned by libraries [...]

I wrote Copy Boy, my first of the Jane Benjamin novels, in ten years, dipping in and out of the [...]

Sacramento-born author, Joan Didion, who passed away over the holidays, had an outsized effect on me, especially this idea from [...]

I just subscribed to the Renee Patrick Books newsletter, drawn in by their Golden Age of Hollywood series, featuring legendary [...]