People like Margaret Craven

Margaret Craven (March 13, 1901 – July 19, 1980) was an American author.

Margaret was the daughter of Arthur J. Craven, a lawyer, and Emily K. Craven. Shortly after she was born, her family, including an older brother, Leslie (born 1889), and her twin brother Wilson, moved from Montana to Bellingham, Washington. After finishing high school in Bellingham, Margaret went to Stanford University (Palo Alto, California) where she majored in history, avoiding English despite her interest and ability in writing.

Upon her graduation with distinction in 1924, she moved from Palo Alto to San Jose, California, where she took a job as secretary to the managing editor of the Mercury Herald. She soon found herself writing the editorials, first over the editor’s initials, then over her own. After the death of the editor, Margaret moved back to Palo Alto and began writing short stories for magazines such as the Delineator. When her father died, her mother came to live with her in California and they moved to San Francisco. There she had an encounter, arranged by Alice B. Toklas, with Gertrude Stein. In 1941 the Saturday Evening Post began accepting her stories. She continued contributing stories to the Post for the next 20 years, although seriously hindered by near-blindness caused by a bacterial infection of the eyes. It was largely owing to her vision problem that during this period she did not write novels, but the problem was overcome around 1960.