Angelica Shirley Carpenter writes biographies for young people and older readers, too. Her subjects are authors—Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. Frank Baum, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, and Matilda Joslyn Gage.

Angelica speaks for teachers, librarians, writers, book clubs, students, bookstore groups, and other audiences. Her photographs appear in her books and in her illustrated talks.

Angelica lives with her husband in Fresno, California. A self-proclaimed Oz nut, she is a past president of the International Wizard of Oz Club. In her former life she was a librarian, the founding curator of the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature at California State University, Fresno. She likes to read, travel, shop, cook, watch movies, and listen to rock and roll (not all at the same time).

Arm in Arm: The Grimké Sisters' Fight for Abolition and Women's Rights

Historian and author Angelica Shirley Carpenter tells the remarkable true story of the sisters’ lives as they cut a swath across the northeastern United States, speaking out against slavery even while facing violence from pro-slavery mobs. When women were expected to stay at home and be quiet, they spoke up, too, for women’s rights, becoming pioneer advocates for that civil liberties movement. Sarah and Angelina’s activism played an important role in the early 1800s, and their actions have had lasting effects—influencing figures such as Ruth Bader Ginsberg—that have set the stage for present-day crusades for equality.

Arm in Arm will be published in September 2025.

Join Angelica at her most recent podcast interview at The Well-Tended Life with Keri Wilt, Great-Great-Granddaughter to Frances Hodgson Burnett (author of The Secret Garden): Episode 69: The Secret Garden Keys to Unlocking Your Imagination with Biographer and Author Angelica Carpenter

Watch various video recordings and interviews