Le Sueur, Meridel (1900–1996)

US writer. She gained a burgeoning reputation after her work was rediscovered by feminist readers, and she was honoured for her poetry, essays, short stories, a biography of her parents, and novels such as The Girl (1939). She was born Meridel Wharton in Murray, Iowa, and was adopted by her stepfather Alfred Le Sueur. She attended high school in Fort Scott, Kansas, and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. Le Sueuer worked in Hollywood as a stuntwoman and actor, then returned to the Midwest. She worked as a journalist, labour reporter, and as a writing instructor at the University of Minnesota. A social and cultural activist, she was blacklisted during the McCarthy era (see McCarthyism).