Roberta E. Sebenthall
Roberta Elisabeth "Betty" Sebenthall was an American novelist and poet, based in Wisconsin. She published fifteen detective novels and several volumes of poetry, sometimes under masculine pseudonyms.
Early life and education
Sebenthall was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and raised in Mount Horeb, the daughter of Robert Graham Sebenthall and Laura Rosalie Cote Sebenthall. Her father was a businessman.Career
Sebenthall worked in a munitions plant during World War II. She wrote fifteen detective novels and several volumes of poetry, sometimes under masculine pseudonyms, including "Paul Kruger" and "Harry Davis". She also wrote book reviews for the Milwaukee Journal, and local history articles for the Wisconsin State Journal.August Derleth praised Sebenthall's first poetry collection, Acquainted with a Chance of Bobcats, for "a freshness of language, a vividness of imagery that comes naturally from her pen, without straining for effect." "Sebenthall's poems are formal recollections of a natural ethic," explains one scholar. "Through her poetry, she attempts to see primeval qualities, feelings, in this time of more civilized modes."
In 1968 Sebenthall was awarded the Writer's Cup by the Madison chapter of Theta Sigma Pi. In 1970 she received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her writing.
Publications
- "To Guadalcanal and Back" The Desperate Wall Portrait of Rene My Brother's Wife A Bullet for a Blonde Dig Her a Grave Bedroom Alibi
- "Thoreau" A Message for Marise
- "Lone Wolf"
- "Easter Island" Weep for Willow Green Weave a Wicked Web
- "The Holy Indigents" If the Shroud Fits The Finish Line Acquainted with a Chance of Bobcats
- "The Artisan as Hero" The Bronze Claws The Cold Ones Voyages to the Inland Sea
- "The Villages"
- ''Anatomy of a December''