Saul retired in 2010 after serving
more than 22 years as lifestyle editor of The Courier newspaper in
Lincoln, where she received numerous awards from the Illinois Press
Association and the Associated Press. Prior to her Courier job, she
worked as a freelance writer and photographer for numerous central
Illinois newspapers. Earlier
in her career, she also wrote for the Publications Division of the
Indiana Department of Commerce, the Public Information Office of
Sangamon State University (now the University of Illinois in
Springfield), the Illinois State Journal-Register, the Springfield
Sun and the Mattoon Journal-Gazette. She served as editor for the
50th anniversary edition of The Progressive Miner.
The Central Illinois Branch, NLAPW,
meets at 1:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month at the
Bloomington Public Library. Professional women writers, artists or
composers who are interested in visiting a meeting may contact Betty
Story, membership chairman, at 309-664-0319 or
gl-bstory@comcast.net, or
contact Saul at
loganilphotos@gmail.com.
The League of American Pen Women
was organized in June 1897 by Marian Longfellow O'Donoghue, niece of
President William McKinley, in protest of the way women writers were
treated by their male counterparts. O'Donoghue, who wrote for
newspapers in Washington, D.C., and Boston, invited fellow
journalists Margaret Sullivan Burke and Anna Sanborne Hamilton to
join her in establishing a "progressive press union" for
Washington's female writers.
The group, including writers, a
teacher and an artist, banded together to seek mutual aid, advice
and career advancement. Professional credentials were required for
membership as they are today, and the women determined that Pen
Women should always be paid for their work.
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Today, the expanded mission of the
organization includes mentoring, encouraging and promoting emerging
professional women in the arts. In a time when arts in the classroom
are being curtailed or eliminated, the national organization also
provides outreach programs that give students a chance to discover
and explore their artistic gifts.
Additional information about the
league is available at www.nlapw.org.
The National League of American Pen
Women was founded in 1921 with 35 local branches in various states.
The organization is headquartered in the historic Pen Arts Building
in the DuPont Circle area of Washington, D.C. First ladies have
always been awarded honorary memberships, and in some cases, such as
Eleanor Roosevelt, have actively participated in league functions.
More than a decade into its second century, league membership has
included more than 55,000 professional women writers, artists and
musicians.
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