Stacy A. Cordery
I find people endlessly fascinating—their choices, their justifications, their joys and sorrows, their innate nobility. When one interesting individual intersects with larger social forces then historical biography is born. Elizabeth Arden, Juliette Gordon Low, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and Theodore Roosevelt lived very different lives, yet all contributed to the fabric of American society and to the broader world in important and intriguing ways. I have loved writing about them.
The job of the historian is not to lobby for or against the subject of her research, but to attempt to treat as objectively as possible both the documentary evidence and the final analysis. If I can do that while recreating the desires and fears, the antipathies and passions of my subjects, then I will have succeeded.
Writing is hard, good work, but for me, the real joy comes from sharing what I’ve learned with interested audiences. I’ve been privileged to address groups of all sorts and sizes, on-line and off, from platforms which included NPR, the History Channel, Smithsonian TV, Anderson Cooper 360°, and C-SPAN, and at venues such as the Wilson Center, the Constitution Center, the Miller Center, and the Society of the Cincinnati. Interacting with people—in the classroom, in the public lecture hall, at book clubs—is the fun reward for the solitary tasks of researching and writing.
I’m represented by literary agent Laurie Liss at Sterling Lord Literistic. She can be reached at laurie@sll.com.
My editor at Viking/Penguin is Emily Wunderlich.