Hair: A Cultural Exploration

Elizabeth Benedict is a graduate of Barnard College and the author of five novels, including the bestseller Almost and the National Book Award finalist Slow Dancing. She is the editor of the anthologies What My Mother Gave Me, a New York Times bestseller, and Mentors, Muses & Monsters, and has written for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Esquire, and the Huffington Post, the Rumpus, and Tin House. Two of her essays have been selected for Best American Essays collections. She has taught widely and works as a writing coach and editor. Benedict edits Me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession, an anthology that proves what every woman knows—many things in life matter more than hair, but few bring as much pleasure as a really great hairdo.

New York Times bestselling author Hallie Ephron grew up in a family of writers and a household filled with books. Her parents were Henry and Phoebe Ephron who wrote screenplays for classic movies like Carousel and Daddy Long Legs. Hallie was the last of their four daughters (Nora, Delia, Hallie, Amy) to start writing or, as she calls it, succumb to her genes. Now Hallie writes suspense novels she hopes keep readers up nights. Her suspense novels include Never Tell a Lie, There was an Old Woman, and Photoplay:  A Story of Suspense. She’s the author of the Edgar-nominated how-to-write book, Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock ‘Em Dead with Style. Her latest is Night Night, Sleep Tight: A Novel of Suspense (William Morrow) a riveting tale of domestic noir, infused with old Hollywood folklore and glamour, set in a town rife with egotism and backstabbing and where fame and infamy are often interchangeable. Ephron also contributes to Me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession (Algonquin Books), an anthology that proves what every woman knows—many things in life matter more than hair, but few bring as much pleasure as a really great hairdo.

Marita Golden is the author of fourteen works of fiction and nonfiction. The Black Caucus of the American Library Association awarded Marita Golden an Honor Award for Gumbo, an anthology of fiction by African American writers which she edited with the late E. Lynn Harris, and the Literary Award for Fiction for her novel After. Golden is one of the twenty-seven contributor to me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession (Algonquin Books), an anthology that proves what every woman knows—many things in life matter more than hair, but few bring as much pleasure as a really great hairdo.

Ru Freeman's creative and political writing has appeared internationally. She is the author of the novels A Disobedient Girl and On Sal Mal Lane, a New York Times Notable, and Editor's Choice Book. Both novels have been translated into several languages including Italian, French, Hebrew, and Chinese. She is Editor of the ground-breaking anthology, Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine. She blogs for the Huffington Post on literature and politics, is a contributing editorial board member of the Asian American Literary Review, and has been a fellow of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. ​She is the 2014 winner of the Sister Mariella Gable Award for Fiction, and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction by an American Woman. Freeman is also a contributor to Me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession (Algonquin), an anthology that proves what every woman knows—many things in life matter more than hair, but few bring as much pleasure as a really great hairdo.