Barbara Kraft

Barbara Kraft is the author of "Henry Miller: The Last Days" (2016 – Sky Blue Press).Her book is based on her essay “The Last Days of Henry Miller” which will be included in "Literary Awakenings: Personal Essays from The Hudson Review," Syracuse University Press, Fall of 2016. "Literary Awakenings" is an anthology of essays from the past thirty years of “the best literary essayists and reviewers to couch their criticism in a highly personal manner as opposed to the theoretical work being produced in many literary and academic venues.”

Other books include "Anais Nin: The Last Days" (Pegasus Books, 2013), "Light Between the Shadows: A Conversation with Eugene Ionesco" (Kindle) 2014, "The Restless Spirit: Journal of a Gemini" (1976), with a preface by Nin and laudatory comment by the late Hemingway biographer Carlos Baker. Her work has also appeared in the Michigan Quarterly, Canadian Theatre Review, Columbia Magazine, et al.

A former reporter for Time, Washington Post, People, USA Today, and Architectural Digest, Kraft’s work has appeared in The Hudson Review, Michigan Quarterly, Canadian Theatre Review and Columbia Magazine, et al; among the many radio programs she has hosted and produced is Transforming OC, a two-part KCRW (the awarding winning Santa Monica-based NPR station) documentary on the 2006 opening of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa.

Kraft has written opera libretti and several radio plays; her play on Maud Gonne, the muse of William Butler Yeats, won an Ohio State Award as an "Outstanding example of original radio drama." She is currently working on a stage play The Politics of Abortion: An American Entertainment.

Kraft is a Registered Reader at the Huntington Library in San Marino and lives and writes in Los Angeles, California.

"Henry Miller: The Last Days" is available from Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, et al.

PUBLISHED WORKS:

When Kraft published The Restless Spirit: Journal of a Gemini, recounting her struggles to achieve individual freedom "as an artist who is a woman in a wealthy, sophisticated society," Carlos Baker, definitive biographer of Hemingway (Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story), wrote, "In the annals of confessional literature, Barbara Kraft's book stands out strongly because of her intelligence, her sharp perceptiveness, the power of her prose and the enthralling personal story she has to tell."

A review in the LA Times said, "There can be no question that this extraordinary journal is a work of excellence. Its poetic merit alone places it beyond the routine categories of thought and art...The Restless Spirit will undoubtedly be "a valuable document in the history of woman's evolution." So Anaïs Nin, the ultimate woman diarist and the author's own mentor and teacher predicts."

SELECTED PUBLISHED ARTICLES, ESSAYS AND REVIEWS:

“The Last Days of Henry Miller,” Literary Awakenings: Personal Essays from The Hudson Review, Syracuse University Press, 2016.

“Great Russian Women Poets of the 20th Century,” Cultural Weekly, 2016

“Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy: An Unlikely Friendship?” Cultural Weekly, 2015

“The Politics of Abortion.” Cultural Weekly 2015

“Henry Miller: The Last Days.” Huffington Post, 2013

“A Conversation with Eugene Ionesco.”, Huffington Post, 2013

“The Politics of Abortion” Huffington Post, 2012

“Anais Nin: The Last Days.” Huffington Post, 2012

"Recollections of Anais Nin by her Contemporaries," Ohio University Press, 1996

"Anais Nin A Biography" by Deidre Bair reviewed for Los Angeles Times Book Review, 1995

"An Edited Life: The Death of Anais Nin (an excerpt) Anais Nin: A Book of Mirrors, Sky Blue Press, Michigan, 1996

"The Last Days of Henry Miller," Henry Miller: A Book of Tributes, 1931-1994, Standish Books, 1994

"The Last Days of Henry Miller," The Hudson Review, New York, Fall 1993

"Historic Houses: Anais Nin's House of Light - The Diary comes to Fruition in Los Angeles," Architectural Digest, January 1984

"Art is What Artists Do," on John Baldessari, for Articles, a Publication of Cal Arts, 1984-85 issue

"The Universe of Sidney Sheinberg," Columbia, the Magazine of Columbia University, 1984

"A Conversation with Henry Miller," Michigan Quarterly Review, The University of Michigan, 1981

"Interview: Eugene Ionesco," Canadian Theatre Review, York University, Downsview, Ontario, 1981

Concert Program Annotator:

A trained musician and pianist, Kraft has written program notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Hollywood Bowl, the International Society of Contemporary Music, Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena, UCLA's Center for the Performing Arts, and most recently for the annual Summer Festival at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.