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Nancy Garden

Nancy Garden was an American writer, editor, teacher, theater maven, and LGBT activist. Garden is best known for her candid fiction on gay and lesbian issues. In 1982 she wrote “Annie on My Mind” one of the first teen novels to feature lesbian characters in a positive light. She is also was a children’s book author and worked in a variety of literary genres.

Garden was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and has lived most of her life in New England and New York. She obtained her BA and MA from Columbia University School of Dramatic Arts. Nancy Garden spent her early adult years working in theater, doing office work, teaching, and editing.

Ms. Garden began publishing in the early 1970s. Her first book came out when she was 43. The real success and at the same time trouble were brought to her by “Annie on My Mind”. The book is about the romantic relationship between two 17-year-old New York City girls who fall in love and embark on a fulfilling sexual relationship.

Almost immediately after publishing the novel sold out and has never been out of print. At the same time, the first young-adult book to portray a lesbian relationship was burned, banned, and destined to become the subject of a federal censorship case.

In 1993, “Annie on My Mind” was officially banned by the Kansas City school system. The Olathe School District refused to accept copies of the book for over ten years. The book was restored to library shelves only in December 1999. During this time Helen became an iconic figure in young adult literature.

In 2000, School Library Journal named “Annie on My Mind” to its list of 100 books that shaped the 20th century.

“I often write about LGBTQ characters and “controversial” subjects and ideas — not because they’re controversial, but because they concern matters I want to write about. I don’t write to defy potential book-banners; I write to tell stories that I feel are important and need to be told” said the writer in one of her later interviews.

Nancy Garden is famous not only for her works in the young adult genre. Her work ranged from humorous picture books, serious literary fiction, horror, mystery, and historical fiction to non-fiction. She is the author of the YA nonfiction book “Hear Us Out!”, as well as novels for children and the picture book “Molly's Family” (2004).

Nancy Garden won dozens of awards. She is a winner of the 2003 Margaret A. Edwards Award. She also has received the Lambda Book Award and the Robert Downs Intellectual Freedom Award.

She died suddenly on the morning of June 23, 2014, of a massive heart attack at her home in Carlisle. She was 76.

Photo credit: Midge Eliassen
years of life: 15 May 1938 23 June 2014

Quotes

lizzywills2005has quotedlast year
raining, Annie.
Liza—Eliza Winthrop—stared in surprise at the words she’d just written; it was as if they had appeared without her bidding on the page before her. “Frank Lloyd Wright’s house at Bear Run, Pennsylvania,” she had meant to write, “is one of the earliest and finest examples of an architect’s use of natural materials and surroundings to …”
But the gray November rain splashed insistently against the window of her small dormitory room, its huge drops shattering against the glass as the wind blew.
Liza turned to a fresh page in her notebook and wrote:
Dear Annie,
It’s raining, raining the way it did when I met you last November, drops so big they run together in ribbons, remember?
Annie, are you all right?
Are you happy, did you find what you wanted to find in California? Are you singing? You must be, but you haven’t said so in your letters. Do other people get goosebumps when you sing, the way I used to?
Annie, the other day I saw a woman who reminded me of your grandmother, and I thought of you, and your room, and the cats, and your father telling stories in his cab when we went for that drive on Thanksgiving. Then your last letter came, saying you’re not going to write any more till you hear from me.
It’s true I haven’t written since the second week you were in music camp this summer. The
roaalfateh969has quotedlast year
cause she interpreted the charter differently from most
roaalfateh969has quotedlast year
3
Mrs. Poindexter didn’t look up when I went into her office. She was a stubby gray-haired woman who wore rimless glasses on a chain and always looked as if she had a pain somewhere. Maybe she always did, because often when she was thinking up one of her sardonically icy things to say she’d flip her glasses down onto her bumpy bosom and pinch her nose as if her sinuses hurt her. But I always had the feeling that what she was trying to convey was that the student she was disciplining was what really gave her the pain. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble by following the school charter: “The Administration of Foster Academy shall guide the students, but the students shall govern themselves.” But I guess she was what Mr. Jorrocks, our American history teacher, would call a “loose constructionist,” because she interpreted the charter differently from most people.
“Sit down, Eliza,” Mrs. Poindexter said, still not looking up. Her voice sounded tired and muffled—as if her mouth were full of gravel.
I sat down. It was always hard not to

Impressions

Amy Nicolshared an impression9 months ago
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    Annie on My Mind
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    🐼Fluffy

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    The Year They Burned the Books
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  • Nancy Garden
    Annie on My Mind
    • 2.6K
    • 166
    • 35
    • 76
    Books
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