Le Sueur, Meridel

Le Sueur, Meridel (b. Wharton) (1900–  ) writer; born in Murray, Iowa. She was adopted by her stepfather, Alfred Le Sueur, and she attended high school in Fort Scott, Kans., and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. She worked in Hollywood as a stuntwoman and actress, then returned to the Midwest. She worked as a journalist, labor reporter, and as a writing instructor at the University of Minnesota. A social and cultural activist, she was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Her work has been rediscovered by feminist readers, and she is honored for her poetry, essays, short stories, a biography of her parents, and novels such as The Girl (1939).