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Rebecca
Wells, actress, playwright, and author of two New York Times
bestsellers, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Little Altars
Everywhere, was born in Louisiana.
After college, Ms. Wells later moved to New York City to pursue
her acting career and began studying the Stanislavski method of acting,
as well as a depth approach that integrates spirituality and
performance with Maurine Holbert. "I live in an actor's body, in which
the cultivation of sense memory, active listening, and the belief that
the sublime can arise out of the most common character, word, or
gesture is somewhat of a religion
for me."
Rebecca's commitment was not only to the stage, but to peace and social
justice as well. In 1982, she went to Seattle, Washington, where she
performed at numerous professional theaters. She also founded a
chapter of Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament. Charmed by the
beauty and grace of The Great Northwest, she decided to make it her
home.
Her writing, however, resides in the heart of Louisiana. While many
fans assume her work is autobiographical, Wells maintains that her
stories are just that -- stories. "I grew up in the fertile world of
story-telling, filled with flamboyance, flirting, futility, and fear.
My work, though, is a result of my imagination dancing a kind of psycho-spiritual tango with
my own history, and the final harvest is fiction, not memoir." Little
Altars Everywhere, which won the Western States Book Award and was a
New York Times bestseller, and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,
a #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the 1999 Adult Trade ABBY
Award, have given Wells a dominant place in American literature.
She lives on an island near Seattle with her husband and her King
Charles Cavalier Spaniel who is named "Mercy." As Rebecca is fond
of saying, "Dogs always remind me why the word 'God' is 'dog' spelled
backwards."
© Photo by Susan Rothschild
