Meryle Secrest

I was born in Bath England and lived there until my parents & I emigrated to Canada after World War 2. I had the good luck to be educated at the City of Bath Girls' School, a top-rate, government-sponsored school with emphasis on the arts and humanities.There I discovered my love of literature, art, music and languages, that has stayed with me for a lifetime. I started working in Canada for a small paper when I was 19, & went on to work for papers in Bristol and Columbus Ohio.My real career began in Washington DC, writing profile interviews of such major figures as Arthur Rubinstein, Marcel Marceau, John Kenneth Galbraith, Mrs Lyndon Johnson, Kenneth Clark, Anais Nin, Licia Albanese, Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, and many others.

My first book, a biography of the American portraitist Romaine Brooks, "Between Me and Life," (1974) was on the list of the Thirty Most Important Books of the American Library Association in 1974. My second book, "Being Bernard Berenson: (1979) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.Several of my books have been best sellers, including "Salvador Dali," "Frank Lloyd Wright" and "Stephen Sondheim". I have won many grants & awards and am proud to have received the Presidential National Humanities Medal by President Bush at the White House in 2006.