Faith McNulty (November 28, 1918 – April 10, 2005) was an American

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

author, probably best known for her 1980 literary journalism genre book ''

The Burning Bed ''The Burning Bed'' is both a 1980 non-fiction book by Faith McNulty about battered housewife Francine Hughes, and a 1984 TV-movie adaptation written by Rose Leiman Goldemberg. The plot follows Hughes' trial for the murder of her husband, James B ...

''. She is also known for her authorship of wildlife pieces and books, including children's books.

Biography

Faith Trumbull Corrigan was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, November 28, 1918. She was the daughter of a judge. She attended

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

for one year, then attended

Rhode Island State College The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Island ...

. But she dropped out of college once she got a job as a copy girl at the ''

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...

''. She later went to work for ''Life'' magazine. She worked for the

United States Office of War Information The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. McNulty was a staff writer at ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

from 1953 to 1994. In 1980, a collection of her ''New Yorker'' work was published as ''The Wildlife Stories of Faith McNulty''. For many years, she edited the annual ''New Yorker'' compilation of the year's best children's books. She also frequently wrote

children's books A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...

on wildlife, including ''How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World'' in 1979 and ''When I Lived With Bats'' in 1998. Her 1966 book ''The Whooping Crane: The Bird that Defies Distinction'' was written for adults. Her husband, John McNulty, was also a writer for ''The New Yorker'' and with

Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century. Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly origin ...

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...

Gay Talese Gaetano "Gay" Talese (; born February 7, 1932) is an American writer. As a journalist for ''The New York Times'' and ''Esquire'' magazine during the 1960s, Talese helped to define contemporary literary journalism and is considered, along with T ...

and

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

, a major figure in the development of the literary genre of

Creative nonfiction Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction or literary journalism or verfabula) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contra ...

, which is also known as

literary journalism Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction or literary journalism or verfabula) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contra ...

or literature in fact. As earlier here noted, having herself been years exposed to

Harold Ross Harold Wallace Ross (November 6, 1892 – December 6, 1951) was an American journalist who co-founded ''The New Yorker'' magazine in 1925 with his wife Jane Grant, and was its editor-in-chief until his death. Early life Born in a prospector's ...

' New Yorker magazine's rarefied environment, which was then so promoting of this evolving genre, Faith's own major nonfiction work, ''The Burning Bed'', is, itself, a quintessential and quality example of the genre of literary journalism or, as Thomas Wolfe once labeled it, the “

New Journalism New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non- ...

”. After her husband John died in 1956, Faith remarried, to Richard Martin, a set designer and an inventive designer of set props. ''The Burning Bed'' was based on the true story of Francine Hughes, who set fire to the bedroom in which her husband was sleeping. Hughes defended herself by saying that her husband had been abusing her for 13 years. The jury at her trial ruled that she had been temporarily insane, and she was found not guilty. Faith had fonder memories of life with kinder family, however. ''"I can remember my father in his nightshirt, digging for worms for the baby robin in the bathroom. That's the kind of household it was; I had

woodchuck The groundhog (''Marmota monax''), also known as a woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. The groundhog is a lowland creature of North America; it is found through mu ...

s in the bathroom,

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...

chipmunk Chipmunks are small, striped rodents of the family Sciuridae. Chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk which is found primarily in Asia. Taxonomy and systematics Chipmunks may be classified either as ...

s"'', McNulty once said. Towards the end of her life, she wrote a weekly column for ''

The Providence Journal ''The Providence Journal'', colloquially known as the ''ProJo'', is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island, and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper was first published in 1829. The newspape ...

'' on a local

animal shelter An animal shelter or pound is a place where stray, lost, abandoned or surrendered animals – mostly dogs and cats – are housed. The word "pound" has its origins in the animal pounds of agricultural communities, where stray livestock would ...

run by the Animal Welfare League. Her mother had founded the Animal Welfare League in southern

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. McNulty had long been known for taking in stray animals at her farm. She suffered a stroke in 2004. She died at her farm in

Wakefield, Rhode Island Wakefield is a village in the town of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, United States, and the commercial center of South Kingstown. Together with the village of Peace Dale, it is treated by the U.S. Census as a component of the census-designated ...

. McNulty's last book was illustrated by

Steven Kellogg Steven Castle Kellogg (born October 26, 1941 in Norwalk, Connecticut) is an American author and illustrator who has created more than 90 children's books. On November 12, 2011, Kellogg was given an honorary ''Doctor of Humane Letters'' from the ...

and published by

Scholastic Books Scholastic Corporation () is an American multinational publishing, education, and media company that publishes and distributes books, comics, and educational materials for schools, parents, and children. Products are distributed via retail and on ...

in 2005, ''If You Decide to Go to the Moon''—a picture book written in the second person. Next year (after McNulty's death) it won a major "year's best" children's literary award, the

Boston Globe–Horn Book Award The Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards are a set of American literary awards conferred by ''The Boston Globe'' and ''The Horn Book Magazine'' annually from 1967. One book is recognized in each of four categories: Fiction and Poetry, Nonfiction, and P ...

for Nonfiction.

Selected works

*''How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World'' *''Dancing with Manatees'' *''The Burning Bed'' *'The Wildlife Stories of Faith McNulty'' *''Peeping in the Shell: A Whooping Crane Is Hatched'' *''Arty The Smarty'' *''Why Must They Die? The strange case of the prairie dog and the black-footed ferret'' *''Whales: Their Life in the Sea'' *''Listening to Whales Sing'' *''How Whales Walked into the Sea'' *''The Elephant Who Couldn't Forget'' *''Endangered Animals'' *''The Great Whales'' *''Hurricane'' *''If Dogs Ruled the World'' *''The Lady and the Spider'' *''Mouse and Tim'' *''Orphan: The Story of a Baby Woodchuck'' *''Playing With Dolphins'' *''Red Wolves'' *''The Silly Story of a Flea and His Dog'' *''A Snake in the House'' *''With Love from Koko'' *''Woodchuck'' * ''If You Decide to Go to the Moon'', illustrated by

(Scholastic, 2005)

References

External links

Photograph of Faith McNulty in 2003
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:McNulty, Faith 1918 births 2005 deaths American children's writers Children's non-fiction writers American nature writers People of the United States Office of War Information American women civilians in World War II