December 11, 1922

Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 to August 22, 2007) American writer of Eastern European parentage, wrote about and lived her ideals. A prominent anti-war and anti-nuclear armaments activist, she also taught at Sarah Lawrence for several decades. Her short stories are collected in multiple volumes including:

The Little Disturbances of Man, (1959)
Later the Same Day, (1974)
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1985).

Joyce Carol Oates described Paley's palette as that of a miniaturist.

Paley's first husband was a cinematographer, and her second the poet and novelist Robert Nichols.

Grace Paley is the topic of much secondary literature, such as the book Conversations with Grace Paley (edited by Gerhard Bach and Blaine H. Hall, 1997.) This collection of 16 interviews includes one with this glimpse of Paley's domestic setting.

[In the kitchen the interviewer]..is given my first sample of pickled herring. ...[Paley] settles down to a piece of strawberry sour cream pie. The cat meows loudly. Grace Paley meows back.