Author

Marlene Wagman-Geller

Marlene Wagman-Geller
  • Finalist Pacific Book Awards 2018! Empowering stories of game-changing women

    Dorothy Parker observed, “It’s a man’s world”; the lady entrepreneurs and game-changers profiled in Women Who Launch would beg to differ. Unlike the matrons of the 1950s—the women who lunched—these kick-ass females left their DNA in the annals of time.

    A history of women in business and beyond: Julia Ward-Howe showed what’s good for the goose is good for the gander when she created the Girl Scouts of America. Sarah Josepha Hale—authoress of Mary Had a Little Lamb—convinced Lincoln to launch a national day of thanks while Anna Jarvis persuaded President Wilson to initiate a day in tribute of mothers. Estee Lauder revolutionized the cosmetics industry. The tradition of these Mothers of Invention continued when, compliments of knitter Krista Suh, the heads of millions were adorned with pink, pussy-cat ears in the largest women’s march in history. These women who launched prove, in the words of Rosie the Riveter, “We can do it!”

    Biographies of women creators, innovators, and leaders: Women Who Launch is filled with inspiring true stories of women activists, artists, and entrepreneurs who launched some of the most famous companies, brands, and organizations today and changed the world. It is at once a collection of biographies and a testament of female empowerment.

    Listeners will find

    • the stories behind renowned companies, brands, and organizations and the diverse women who launched them;
    • empowering quotes from strong women and those who refused to be kept down; and
    • motivation to all women who want to succeed in their careers, launch companies, and change the world.

    Find motivation in your career and life with the amazing history of women entrepreneurship, activism, and leadership.

  • Glimpse behind the façade of rich and famous women

    The Grass Isn’t Greener on the Other Side: Heiresses have always been viewed with eyes of envy. They were the ones for whom the cornucopia had been upended, showering them with unimaginable wealth and opportunity. However, through intimate historical biographies, Women of Means shows us that oftentimes the weaving sisters saved their most heart-wrenching tapestries for the destinies of wealthy women.

    Happily Never After: From the author of Behind Every Great Man, we now have Women of Means, vignettes of the women who were slated from birth―or marriage―to great privilege, only to endure lives which were the stuff Russian tragic heroines are made of. They are the nonfictional Richard Corys―those not slated for happily ever after.

    Women of Means is bound to be a non-fiction bestseller, full of the best biographies of all time. Some of the women whose silver spoons rusted include:

    • Almina Carnarvon, the real-life counterpart to Lady Cora of Downton Abbey
    • Liliane Bettencourt, whose chemist father created L’Oreal … and was a Nazi collaborator
    • Peggy Guggenheim, who had an insatiable appetite for modern art and men
    • Nica Rothschild, who traded her gilded life to become the Baroness of Bebop
    • Jocelyn Wildenstein, who became a cosmetology-enhanced cat-woman
    • Ruth Madoff, the dethroned queen of Manhattan
    • Patty Hearst, who trod the path from heiress … to terrorist


  • Empowering biographies of older women in history

    Antony said of Cleopatra, “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety.” Shakespeare’s sentiment can be applied to the women profiled in Great Second Acts who refused to be defined by the dates on their birth certificates. Their lives are testimony that one can be feisty after fifty. And to those who think otherwise, in the words of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “I dissent.”

    Marlene Wagman-Geller, author of Once Again to Zelda and Behind Every Great Man, presents a fascinating collection of biographical vignettes of dozens of women of a certain age who have excelled, inspired, and achieved. Learn how these women changed their respective fields of art, politics, science, mathematics, media, literature, activism, education, and more.

    From actresses, yoga teachers, folk artists to business women, prime ministers, monarchs, and authors, this group of exceptional women will illustrate that women can achieve anything, no matter their age. Listeners will find

    • biographies of influential women such as Prime Minister Margert Thatcher, chef Julia Child, Mother Teresa, feminist Gloria Steinem, actress Rita Moreno, Judge Judy Sheindlin, and many more;
    • empowering quotes from strong women who refused to be kept down; and
    • motivational, inspirational, and educational stories of older women.

    Written in an accessible narrative style, listeners of all ages will enjoy Wagman-Geller’s entertaining storytelling prose of these remarkable women. An excellent gift for students, mothers, sisters, or friends, Great Second Acts will endure and delight.

  • Who are the great women leaders in history? Who are the women heroes who personify “girl power”?

    Intrepid women heroes: When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa’s brutal Robben Prison, he tirelessly turned to the poem Invictus. The inspirational verse by the Victorian William Ernest Henley, penned on the occasion of the amputation of his leg. Still I Rise takes its title from a work by Maya Angelou and it resonates with the same spirit of an unconquerable soul, a woman who is captain of her fate. Just as Invictus brought solace to generations so does the contemporary classic. Still I Rise embodies the strength of character of the inspiring women profiled. Each chapter will outline the fall and rise of great women heroes who smashed all obstacles, rather than let all obstacles smash them. The book offers hope to those undergoing their own Sisyphean struggles. Intrepid women heroes are the antithesis of the traditional damsels in distress; rather than waiting for the prince, they took salvation into their own hands.

    Celebrate girl power!

    Women leaders in history celebrated in this book include:

    • Madame C. J. Walker - first female American millionaire
    • Aung San Suu Kyi - Burma’s first lady of freedom
    • Betty Shabazz - civil rights activist
    • Nellie Sachs - Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize recipient
    • Selma Lagerlof - first woman Nobel Laureate
    • Fannie Lou Hamer - American voting rights activist
    • Bessie Coleman - first African-American female pilot
    • Wilma Rudolph - first woman to win three gold medals
    • Sonia Sotomayor - first Hispanic Supreme Court justice
    • Wangari Maathai - Nobel Prize winner
    • Winnifred Mandela - freedom fighter
    • Lois Wilson - founder of Al-Anon
    • Roxanne Quimby - co-founder of Burt’s Bees