Elizabeth Stone
Elizabeth Stone, an award-winning essayist and journalist, is the author of many articles and four books. Her profiles, op-eds, think pieces, personal essays and reporting have appeared in well-known national periodicals, including The New York Times and The Atlantic.
She is an English professor at Fordham University teaching literature, journalism and creative writing—especially memoir and op-eds. Her literature specialties are modern autobiography and the literature of immigration. The recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Elizabeth has taught creative writing internationally and at the University of Iowa’s Summer Writing Festival.
Interest in her work has led to guest appearances on NPR, PBS and yes, even Fox News. Elizabeth grew up in Brooklyn (attending the same high school as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Chuck Schumer, and Bernie Sanders, though not at the same time). She lives on the Upper West Side.
Recent Articles
Sometimes a Revision Really Is a RE-Vision
Cleaver
“When a former student died of AIDS and left me his diaries, I couldn’t unearth the real story I needed to tell—until I began wondering why my long-dead grandmother made a lengthy appearance and why my elderly mother kept popping up in my first draft.”
Overlooked No More: Pierre Toussaint, Philanthropist and Candidate for Sainthood
The New York Times
“He became wealthy working as a hairdresser in New York, then used his funds to free enslaved people, build churches and house orphans of color.”
Our American Stories
On this episode of Our American Stories, Elizabeth Stone tells the surprising story of how Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus" came to be eternally connected to the Statue of Liberty.
The Woman Who Saved the Statue of Liberty
Smithsonian Magazine
“Georgina Schuyler campaigned for Emma Lazarus’ 'The New Colossus' to be inscribed on a plaque in the monument’s pedestal... But previously overlooked archival records underscore that Schuyler did far more than that: She saved the Statue of Liberty from irrelevance at a time when the landmark was widely viewed as no more than a failed, dilapidated lighthouse.”
Are You an “Uncle Sam” or a “Lady Liberty”?
Slate
“The job of personified national symbols is to promote a unified citizenry... Instead, Sam and Liberty routinely mirror our divisions. The United States is the only country that has two such diametrically opposed personified national symbols. In 2022, this looks like a warning.”
