Writing for Keeps: The Life and Legacy of Tillie Olsen

Tillie Olsen didn't publish much, but her work has had an outsize impact. Her stories were instant classics and part of the great democratization of 20th-century American lit. The fact that they were painstakingly written while working menial jobs, raising four kids and campaigning tirelessly for human rights added to her legend. With the recent publication of some of her previously out-of-print works, I talked with teacher/writer Julie Olsen Edwards and poet/teacher Rebekah Edwards – Tillie's daughter and granddaughter, respectively – about her life, writing and legacy.