A sweeping social history that readers of bestsellers will love, American Empress chronicles the story of Marjorie Merriweather Post--the force behind the growth of General Foods--in an irresistible rags-to-riches saga that captures the age of opulence. 16 pages of photos. Ties in with the A&E documentary "America's Castles" in January and with the 100th anniversary of Post Cereals.
As a nine-year old growing up in suburban Boston, Nancy wrote her first "book" about her mischievous dog and friends. "Being a red-head meant I was teased a lot," Nancy recalls. "I still wonder if that sense of being different impelled me to become a writer because I felt myself an outsider, an observer of others."
While raising her own children two decades later, Nancy became a stringer for the New York Times and won a scholarship to the Breadloaf Writers Conference. Those experiences sparked her first nonfiction book, THE NEW SUBURBAN WOMAN, followed by THE MOTHER MIRROR, ISABELLA OF CASTILE (a Book-of-the Month Featured Dividend) and the best-selling biography of Majorie Merriweather Post,AMERICAN EMPRESS.
Subsequent to writing several award-wining series for television, Nancy published the THE RELUCTANT SPIRITUALIST in 2005, a dramatic story about the origins of American spiritualism.
Her fascination with history led to research about Mercy Otis Warren, America's first female playwright and historian, for which Nancy won a fellowship to the American Antiquarian Society. In 2008 Beacon Press published that work, the award-winning THE MUSE OF THE REVOLUTION which appeared in paperback in 2009.
A seasoned speaker who appeared on C-Span's BookTV in 2008 and 2009, Nancy is writing a new book and serves as the director of the Cape Cod Writers Center Conference. She enjoys spending time with her husband and family, friends, gardening, historical preservation, dancing and the cultural life of Boston and Manhattan.
