Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Throughout her life, she seldom left her house, and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her thoughts and poetry. By the 1860s, she lived in almost total physical isolation from the outside world but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely. Her poetry reflects her loneliness, and the speakers of her poems generally live in a state of want, but her poems are also marked by the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are decidedly life-giving and suggest the possibility of happiness. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955.

Mary Woods began her career in Washington, DC, where she performed at Ford’s Theater, the Folger Theater, Round House, and Washington Stage Guild. She spent several seasons at New Playwrights’ Theater developing new American plays. She is a veteran narrator of Talking Books for the Library of Congress, and received the Alexander Scourby Narrator of the Year Award for fiction in 1996. Formerly a radio news director, she now hosts a daily local affairs interview program on Catholic Radio, for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. She lives in Albuquerque, where she continues to act on stage and in film. She received her BA at the Catholic University of America in Fine Arts and Drama.