American women memoirists

Casey_Sheehan

Cindy Lee Sheehan (née Miller; born July 10, 1957) is an American anti-war activist, whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended antiwar protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch—a stand that drew both passionate support and criticism. Sheehan ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008. She was a vocal critic of President Barack Obama's foreign policy. Her memoir, Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism, was published in 2006. In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2017, Sheehan continued to hold her critical views towards George W. Bush, while also criticizing the militarism of Donald Trump.Sheehan was the 2012 vice-presidential nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party, and received 1.2% of the statewide vote in the 2014 California gubernatorial election.

Bruce_Jenner

Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born William Bruce Jenner; October 28, 1949; known as Bruce Jenner until 2015) is an American media personality and former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete.
Jenner played college football for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a knee injury that required surgery. Convinced by Olympic decathlete Jack Parker's coach, L. D. Weldon, to try the decathlon, Jenner had a six-year decathlon career, culminating in winning the men's decathlon event at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, setting a third successive world record and gaining fame as "an all-American hero". Jenner established a career in television, film, writing, auto racing, business, and as a Playgirl cover model.Jenner has six children with three successive wives – Chrystie Crownover, Linda Thompson, and Kris Jenner – and from 2007 to 2021 appeared on the reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians with Kris, their daughters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, as well as Kris's other children from her previous marriage, Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Rob Kardashian.
Jenner publicly came out as a trans woman in April 2015, announcing her new name in July of that year. From 2015 to 2016, she starred in the reality television series I Am Cait, which focused on her gender transition. At the time of her coming out, she had been called the most famous trans woman in the world. Jenner is a transgender rights activist, although her views on transgender issues have been criticized by many other LGBTQ+ activists.A member of the Republican Party, Jenner ran in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, finishing 13th with one percent of the vote. Six months after the election, Jenner was hired by Fox News as an on-air contributor.

Sean_Preston_Federline

Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the "Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Spears has sold over 150 million records worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. She has earned numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, 15 Guinness world records, six MTV Video Music Awards, seven Billboard Music Awards (including the Millennium Award), the inaugural Radio Disney Icon Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her heavily choreographed videos earned her the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.
After appearing in stage productions and television series, Spears signed with Jive Records in 1997 at age fifteen. Her first two studio albums, ...Baby One More Time (1999) and Oops!... I Did It Again (2000), are among the best-selling albums of all time and made Spears the best-selling teenage artist of all time. With first-week sales of over 1.3 million copies, Oops!... I Did It Again held the record for the fastest-selling album by a female artist in the United States for fifteen years. Spears adopted a more mature and provocative style for her albums Britney (2001) and In the Zone (2003), and starred in the 2002 film Crossroads. She was executive producer of her fifth studio album, Blackout (2007), often referred to as her best work. Following a series of highly publicized personal problems, promotion for the album was limited, and Spears was involuntarily placed in a conservatorship.
Subsequently, Spears released the chart-topping albums, Circus (2008) and Femme Fatale (2011), the latter of which became her most successful era of singles in the US charts. With "3" in 2009 and "Hold It Against Me" in 2011, Spears became the second artist after Mariah Carey in the Billboard Hot 100's history to debut at number one with two or more songs. She embarked on a four-year concert residency, Britney: Piece of Me, at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas to promote her next two albums Britney Jean (2013) and Glory (2016). In 2019, Spears' legal battle over her conservatorship became more publicized and led to the establishment of the #FreeBritney movement. In 2021, the conservatorship was terminated following her public testimony in which she accused her management team and family of abuse.In the United States, Spears is the fourth best-selling female album artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, as well as the best-selling female album artist of the 2000s. She was ranked by Billboard as the eighth-biggest artist of the 2000s. Spears has had six number-one albums on the Billboard 200 and five number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100: "...Baby One More Time", "Womanizer", "3", "Hold It Against Me", and "S&M (Remix)". Other hit singles include "Oops!... I Did It Again", "I'm a Slave 4 U", "Toxic", "Gimme More", and "Piece of Me". "...Baby One More Time" was named the greatest debut single of all time by Rolling Stone in 2020. In 2004, Spears launched a perfume brand with Elizabeth Arden, Inc.; sales exceeded $1.5 billion as of 2012. Forbes has reported Spears as the highest-earning female musician of 2001 and 2012. By 2012, she had topped Yahoo!'s list of most searched celebrities seven times in twelve years. Time named Spears one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. Spears placed first in the Time reader poll.

Caren_Marsh_Doll

Caren Marsh Doll (née Morris; born April 6, 1919), also credited as Caren Marsh, is an American former stage and screen actress and dancer specializing in modern dance and tap. She is notable as Judy Garland's stand-in in The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Ziegfeld Girl (1941). She is one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
From 1937 until 1948, Marsh appeared in motion pictures with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a small uncredited part in Gone with the Wind. She became a dance instructor in 1956.

Jayne_Meadows

Jayne Meadows (born Jane Cotter; September 27, 1919 – April 26, 2015) was an American stage, film and television actress, as well as an author and lecturer. She was nominated for three Emmy Awards during her career and was the elder sister of actress and memoirist Audrey Meadows as well as the wife of original Tonight Show host Steve Allen.

Laura_Ling

Laura Ling (born December 1, 1976) is an American journalist and writer. She worked for Current TV as a correspondent and vice president of its Vanguard Journalism Unit, which produced the Vanguard TV series.
She was the host and reporter on E! Investigates, a documentary series on the E! Network. In November 2014, Ling joined Discovery Digital Networks as its Director of Development.In 2009, Ling and fellow journalist Euna Lee were detained in North Korea after they started filming refugees from the country who had crossed the river and entered China. Many of these refugees were women, and once across the border, they were often sold as brides. Ling said that the North Korean guards dragged her across the border. Once in North Korea the two women were tried and convicted. They were pardoned after former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-il and appeal on their behalf.Ling and her older sister, Lisa Ling, are daughters of Taiwanese and Chinese immigrants. They grew up in Carmichael and Sacramento, California. Both became journalists and her sister is a special correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show, National Geographic Explorer, and CNN.

Carolyn_See

Carolyn See (née Laws; January 13, 1934 – July 13, 2016) was a professor emerita of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of ten books, including the memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, an advice book on writing, Making a Literary Life, and the novels There Will Never Be Another You, Golden Days, and The Handyman. See was also a book critic for the Washington Post for 27 years.

Caroline_Knapp

Caroline Knapp (November 8, 1959 – June 3/4, 2002) was an American writer and columnist whose candid best-selling memoir Drinking: A Love Story recounted her 20-year battle with alcoholism. She was the daughter of noted psychiatrist Peter H. Knapp, who was a researcher of psychosomatic medicine.