Who is Rosemary Daniell?

Rosemary Daniell is a southern provocateur who writes about sexual politics. In 1975 she published a stunning and controversial collection of poetry, A Sexual Tour of the Deep South, which got her disinvited from speaking engagements and literary jobs, then she went on to write two notable memoirs, Fatal Flowers and Sleeping with Soldiers, among many other books. That’s who Rosemary Daniell is.

She is also founder of the famed Zona Rosa writing workshops, and she has written two books about that experience–The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself: Writing & Living the Zona Rosa Way (1997), and Secrets of the Zona Rosa: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Can Change Women’s Lives (2006).

Last week Rosemary convened her 21st annual Zona Rosa Retreat aka “Pajama Party for Grown-up Girls with Smarts” at Tybee Island, Georgia. Rosemary rents a large beach house and piles a bunch of women writers in there. They work all week, and on Friday evening they have a big salon. (Note: She has been leading Zona Rosa gatherings for much longer than 21 years. That’s the age of the Tybee one.)

This year their word for the week was “momentum” and the question they pondered was, “When are you going to stop pretending you don’t know who you are and what you were sent here to do?”

Rosemary invited me to join the group last Friday afternoon to talk about driving your own publicity and marketing. Rosemary is 87, almost 88, and she looked stronger, healthier, and more beautiful than ever. 

I love driving over to the island, letting myself in the “Happy House” where books and women are everywhere, and making new friends, including one from Argentina and one from Belgium this year. Then we dove into the nitty-gritty of navigating the end-times of New York publishing and the topsy-turvy world of internet marketing.

Last year was my first time at the ZONA ROSA retreat. Rosemary invited me to attend the Friday evening salon, where Zona Rosans and friends read. I found myself in the company of Crescent Dragonwagon, Amanda Gable, Steven Croft, and a bunch of other interesting writers.

I made these notes in my journal last year. 

Last night Rosemary Daniell’s beach retreat end-party. Her red hair. Necklace the shape of big lips. Beautiful pink cane. The most perfect skin in the world. She told me she uses estrogen cream on her face at night. Nails done. Blouse unbuttoned one button lower than mine. Her intolerance of anything that doesn’t seem genuine. 

Good food. A shrimp platter. Sliced cheese. Small purple plums stuffed with cheese. Four chocolate cakes. Some kind of bourbon pie.

How I wish I’d been able to study with her. So many of the women she’s worked with have books, and she birthed so many of them. 

Way down here at the bottom of this post I want to bury Rosemary’s age. You can google this, because back in the day a writer’s birthday got listed in the front-pages of their books. Rosemary was born Nov. 29, 1935. That means she’s 87. Think about that for a minute or two. 

She is one astounding woman, and I’m proud to know her.

Rosemary Daniell Is

Rosemary Daniell is known as one of best writing coaches in the country. She is the author of Secrets of the ZONA ROSA: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Change Women’s Lives, and its prequel, The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself: Writing and Living the ZONA ROSA Way. She is the founder and leader of Zona Rosa®, a series of creative writing workshops in Savannah, Atlanta, and cities throughout the country, as well as in Europe, as profiled in People, Southern Living and The South magazines. Over 400 Zona Rosans and counting have become published authors.

She is also the award-winning author of eight  other books of poetry and prose. Her revolutionary memoir Fatal Flowers: On Sin, Sex and Suicide in the Deep South, won the 1999 Palimpsest Prize for a most requested out-of-print book. Along with her second memoir Sleeping with Soldiers, it was a forerunner of the current memoir trend. Along with her six other books of poetry and prose, they were widely and nationally reviewed in many publications, among them Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Ms., and Rolling Stone.

Rosemary has received many awards, among them two NEA grants, one in poetry, another in fiction.

She has reviewed books for The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Time, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and been published in such magazines as Mother Jones, Harper’s Bazaar, Self, Travel and Leisure, New York Woman, and other magazines, as well as many literary publications. She has also appeared on a number of national radio and TV shows.

In 2008, she was given a Governor’s Award in the Humanities for her impact on the state of Georgia. She was also profiled in Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-75.