Tillie Olsen

Speaking of places for work, Tillie Olsen died. Olsen explained how difficult it is for mothers to find time and a place to be creative when they’re busy minding the children and making the dinners.

Reviewing the book in The New York Times Book Review, Margaret Atwood attributed Ms. Olsen’s relatively small output to her full life as a wife and mother, a “grueling obstacle course” experienced by many writers.

“It begins with an account, first drafted in 1962, of her own long, circumstantially enforced silence,” Ms. Atwood wrote. “She did not write for a very simple reason: A day has 24 hours. For 20 years she had no time, no energy and none of the money that would have bought both.”