Her diaries ignited a national uproar, ushering in a new era for women's voices. Her elegant, ambitious embrace of full-disclosure had opened a door to what was possible for women.” - The Atlantic, March 2013 “She comes off the page quivering with life. Moving.” - London Times (1981 retrospect) “Mary MacLane’s first book was the first of the confessional diaries ever written in this country, and it was a sensation.” - N.Y. Times (editorial) “She had a short but fiery life of writing and misadventure, and her writing was a template for the confessional memoirs that have become ubiquitous.” - The New Yorker, March 2013 “One of the most fascinatingly self-involved personalities of the 20th century.” - The Age (Nov. 2011 feature article) “In a pre-soundbite age she already knew how to draw blood in one direct sentence. Mary MacLane - who openly resisted the idea that she was like everyone else, of her time or any other - lived the dream, as we say nowadays, and the sun of the wide, bright world has come to shine on her again.” - The Awl, March 2013 “Miss MacLane stands as the greatest sensationalist of a sensational day … She dares to tell to all the world what most people try to keep profoundly guarded … She stands for truth and dares the courage of her convictions.” - From hundreds of letters-to-the-editor on her first book “I sing only the Ego and the individual. So does in secret each man and woman and child who breathes, but is afraid to sing it aloud.” - MM, 1917 Mary MacLane (1881-1929) was the first of the modern media personalities: a pioneer in self-revelation, in defiance of established rules, in living on her own terms - and writing about it. At age 19 she burst upon the world out of Butte, Montana with a journal - "I Await the Devil's Coming" - of her private thoughts and longings that brought national then international attention. Through the books and newspaper articles that followed she created a completely new, individual voice decades ahead of its time. She influenced Gertrude Stein, inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald, and was hailed by America’s greatest writers and everyday people on the street. And though she inspires film, stage, and music projects to this day - though she is quoted on and off the Internet - the writer behind the writing has remained unknown until now. HUMAN DAYS: A MARY MACLANE READER features the complete texts of all her books (with expurgated passages restored), her colorful newspaper writing (much of it never before reprinted), an intriguing 1902 interview, the first viewing ever of her striking personal letters, illuminating introductions to each era in her life, and comprehensive notes that open the door to her influences and the age that she came from and impacted so strikingly. A foreword from actress Bojana Novakovic provides a contemporary artist’s creative appreciation of MacLane’s still-powerful effect upon readers. Michael R. Brown is the foremost MacLane researcher in the world today. He published the acclaimed MacLane anthology Tender Darkness and more recently authored the well-reviewed experimental memoir She and I: A Fugue. He is completing the first book ever on MacLane’s life, career, and influence for publication in late 2014. He lives in Northern California. Bojana Novakovic is an Australian Film Inst. award-winning film, stage and television actress, translator, director, playwright, and co-Artistic-Director of Ride On Theatre. In 2011-2012 she toured Australia in her original stage interpretation The Story of Mary MacLane - by Herself, playing the title role.

    She explores the familiar rituals, the shared dreams, and the guarded secrets that tie family together as she unravels the mysteries behind familial relationships. Throughout, McClanahan seeks to identify what it means to be an individual within the context of kinship and unexpected connections.Besides navigating her own emotional landscape and her family's, McClanahan revisits the physical places of her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. She takes us to the military bases where her father and husband were stationed, to the cemeteries she loved as both child and adult, and to the various hospitals and homes that served as backdrops for family crises and celebrations. Without sentimentality, she considers the meaning of losses--the loss of a child, a family home, and a family pet, and a lost chance at motherhood.Partly fashioned around the lines of the folk tune "The Riddle Song," The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings captures the palpable bonds that exist between mothers, daughters, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and grandparents. Through intuitive and exquisite language, Rebecca McClanahan reveals the strange and enchanting patterns that connect her to these ancestral souls.