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Yes, this sounds right to me. Mildred Wirt Benson, the first woman to earn
a Master's degree in journalism at the University of Iowa, wrote several of
the original Nancy Drew books and continued to do so on and off for about
twenty years as I recall. There was a conference here in Iowa City about Nancy
Drew in 1993 which was well attended and received fairly extensive coverage in
both print and electronic media.
A book that collects the bulk of the proceedings from that conference is
scheduled for publication in May, 1995 under the title "Rediscovering Nancy
Drew", edited by Carolyn Stewart Dyer and Nancy Tillman Romalov. (272 pp., 20
photographs. ISBN 0-87745-500-7, 24.95 cloth or ISBN 0-87745-501-5, 12.95
paper).
Everone's recollection was that as a graduate student Ms. Benson was
daring, resourceful and outgoing. In a session I attended at which she
spoke, she recalled that she based the character of Nancy largely on the
basis of what she wished her own life was like.
Barb Black, young adult librarian at the Iowa City Public Library, and I
participated in a session in which we "debated" the pros and cons of
including the Nancy Drew books (and by implication, other similar series
books) in our respective collections. The issue of literary quality vs
popularity was hashed over and Ms. Romalov moderated, describing the
historical underpinnings of the subject.
Forgive me if my recollections are not precise. For those who desire all
the details, I expect the book will provide them.
Hope this helps,
Joel Shoemaker jshoe@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
South East Junior High 319-339-6823 (voice)
2501 Bradford Drive 319-339-5735 (fax)
Iowa City, IA 52240
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Patti Rish wrote:
> The "real" Carolyn Keene is alive and living in Toledo, Ohio. She writes
> a regular column for the Toledo Blade newspaper under the name Millie
> Benson. I don't know whether Millie Benson is a psuedonym or not.
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