Associate

Iris Jamahl Dunkle is an award-winning literary biographer, essayist, and poet who lives in Northern California. She wrote the first full-length biography on Charmian London, Jack London's wife, Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020). Her fourth collection of poems, West : Fire : Archive was published by The Center for Literary Publishing in 2021. Dunkle teaches at Napa Valley College and is the Poetry and Translation Director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference and is currently writing a full length biography of the author Sanora Babb.

Currently Browsing: Iris Dunkle

“Ghosts All Over the Story of My Beginnings” — Jan Beatty

by Iris Dunkle

2 years ago

We are taught that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We are taught that a girl who ventures on a quest to find her lost parents will become whole when she finds them; we are taught that this girl will find happiness.

But the truth is, life doesn’t usually happen in this way. Sometimes the “story begins at an impasse” as Patrice Staiger writes.… read more.

“… young Sanora sought refuge with the Otoe people…”

by Iris Dunkle

2 years ago

From Jan Lisa Huttner (Editor-in-Chief of FF2 Media):

Poet Iris Jamahl Dunkle, having completed a masterful biography of Charmian Kittredge London, is now doing in-depth research on her next subject: Sanora Babb. And FF2 Media is proud to announce that we will be traveling with her!

We have several reasons for embarking on this journey with Iris.… read more.

The Photography of Hansel Mieth: The Story Is in the Roots

by Iris Dunkle

2 years ago

The Cotton Picker photograph by Hansel Mieth

What a gift I found the day I visited the Sonoma County Museum and began to see the world through the shutter of Mieth’s camera.

Once Eclipsed, Sanora Babb’s Dust Bowl Novel ‘Whose Names Are Unknown’ Demands Our Attention

by Iris Dunkle

2 years ago

Writer Sanora Babb is best known for her first novel about the Dust Bowl, Whose Names Are Unknown.

Charmian Kittredge London & the Call of Two Photographs

by Iris Dunkle

2 years ago

On a cool fall day in 1943, young photographers Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel visited Charmian Kittredge London–the wife of author Jack London–at her home in Glen Ellen (CA). This was just five years before Mieth would become the second woman photographer to join the staff of Time Magazine.… read more.

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