Sallie Bingham

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Taken by the Shawnee

“This is an amazing book, and I couldn’t stop reading it.”
— Joan Silber, PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Secrets of Happiness and Improvement

 

“Sallie Bingham has imagined her ancestor’s history so graphically, so passionately, that every page of this astounding story electrifies.”
— Joan Frank, author of Juniper Street: a Novel and Late Work

 
Taken by the Shawnee cover

Now Available from Turtle Point Press

In a most unusual portrait of early America, a young mother’s years in captivity with the Shawnee prove to be the best years of her life.

It’s 1779 and a young white woman named Margaret Erskine is venturing west from Virginia, on horseback, with her baby daughter and the rest of her family. She has no experience of Indians, and has absorbed most of the prejudices of her time, but she is open-minded, hardy, and mentally strong, a trait common to most of her female descendants–Sallie Bingham’s ancestors...

This is the seldom told story of the making of this country in the years of the Revolution, what it cost in lives and suffering, and how one woman among many not only survived extreme hardship, but flourished.


“Bingham recounts this fascinating story of capture, survival, progress, healing, and return with lush descriptions and respect for all involved with Margaret’s complicated story. She is a smart and empathetic writer, and has created an awesome account of female survival at a horrific time.”— Booklist

 

“The novel paints a compelling portrait of womanhood in this era. Crucially, the author depicts the violence of the period as integral to the colonial project, dismissing any propagandistic delusions of one-sided "savagery" and instead depicting each culture without romance or bias.”— Kirkus Reviews

 
 

Recent Short Story Awards


“What I Learned from Fat Annie”
Recipient of the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize for 2023.
Forthcoming in How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (Sept. 23, 2025).


“How Daddy Lost His Ear”
Second prize in the 2023 Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition.
Forthcoming in How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (Sept. 23, 2025).


“July Fourth”
Honorable Mention in the 2024 Stories That Need to Be Told Contest.
Forthcoming in How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (Sept. 23, 2025).

 
 

The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke

“Men who inherit great wealth are respected, but women who do the same are ridiculed. In The Silver Swan, Sallie Bingham rescues Doris Duke from this gendered prison and shows us just how brave, rebellious, and creative this unique woman really was, and how her generosity benefits us to this day.”— Gloria Steinem

 

“In her fascinating book about tobacco heiress Doris Duke, whose net worth had ballooned to $1.2 billion by her death in 1993, Bingham gets at how inherited wealth liberates women but also burdens them.”— The National Book Review, "5 HOT BOOKS"

 

“In this illuminating biography, Bingham (The Blue Box) chronicles the life of philanthropist and tobacco heiress Doris Duke (1912–1993)... Bingham is a generous biographer in this exacting, measured work.”— Publishers Weekly

 

“Bingham adds a trove of new material to the Duke oeuvre, including revealing quotations from letters and details of daily life on Duke’s many estates. ”— The New York Times

 

Prefer text? Read the transcript.

Sallie Bingham is a writer, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist.

Sallie’s first novel was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1961; she has since published six additional novels and the well-known family memoir, Passion and Prejudice (Knopf, 1989). Her latest book, The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke, is now available from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

She is founder of the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which published The American Voice, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University.

 

Sallie's Latest

Two La Cofradía de La Conquistadora with La Conquistadora
Women New Mexico

If You Want to Build a Strong Girl

  • July 30th, 2025
  • Santa Fe
32.5kviews {views}

For all of us who are influencing the development of daughters and granddaughters (and nieces and young friends) here are a few thoughts.

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Photo of a wooden box containing small jars
Writing

The Writer’s Nose

  • July 27th, 2025
  • writing workshops, Taos, SOMOS
32.5kviews {views}

I’ve taught dozens of workshops over the years; all anyone wants to hear about is writing memoir, which is beginning to seem quite dull to me…

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Hand-written poem in a journal
Women Writing

Being Seventeen

  • July 20th, 2025
  • Radcliffe, Harvard
32.5kviews {views}

I was beginning to revel in the unexpected adventures and treasures of my sophomore year at college… I ...

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1867 Marriage Settlement
My Family Kentucky

Eighteen Slaves

  • July 16th, 2025
  • The Blue Box, Taken by the Shawnee
32.5kviews {views}

I’m now excavating the final layer of letters and papers in my mother’s Blue Box; the upper levels ...

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The dog pip sitting on my doorstep
New Mexico

Remembering Pip

  • July 13th, 2025
  • Black Pip
32.5kviews {views}

July 9, 2024: Pip is suffering, he has suffered in silence and withdrawal, sleeping outside at night for ...

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Photo of the Statue of Liberty
Women Kentucky

Reasons to Hope

  • July 9th, 2025
  • Feminism
32.5kviews {views}

It’s important not to be ploughed under by the chaos and intemperance in Washington. We don’t live in ...

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The Silver Swan book cover
Writing

The Fruits of the Past Five Years

  • July 6th, 2025
  • Taken by the Shawnee, Treason: A Sallie Bingham Reader, How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories, The Blue Box, Little Brother: A Memoir
32.5kviews {views}

It has taken many years, many rejections, disappointments and sidetracks, to get to the place I wanted to be when I published my first book in the 1960s.

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Photo of Koi in a large pond
New Mexico

Feeding the Fish

  • June 29th, 2025
32.5kviews {views}

Some years ago a man I was in love with at the time persuaded me to have a ...

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Photo of Ernest Hemingway with two sailfish
My Family

Whose Eyes

  • June 22nd, 2025
  • Ernest Hemingway, William Bingham Iovenko
32.5kviews {views}

Yesterday, as I was walking through my garden admiring the play of early light on leaves and flowers, ...

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Religious Icon of Hagia Sophia by Eileen McGuckin
Politics

Lady Wisdom

  • June 18th, 2025
  • Donald Trump
32.5kviews {views}

32.5kviews {views}Known to the Greeks as the goddess Sophia, this quality—not knowledge, but something finer, more mysterious and ...

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Taken by the Shawnee
(Turtle Point Press, 2024)

1867 Marriage Settlement
My Family Kentucky

Eighteen Slaves

  • July 16th, 2025
  • The Blue Box, Taken by the Shawnee
32.5kviews {views}

I’m now excavating the final layer of letters and papers in my mother’s Blue Box; the upper levels ...

  
The Silver Swan book cover
Writing

The Fruits of the Past Five Years

  • July 6th, 2025
  • Taken by the Shawnee, Treason: A Sallie Bingham Reader, How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories, The Blue Box, Little Brother: A Memoir
32.5kviews {views}

It has taken many years, many rejections, disappointments and sidetracks, to get to the place I wanted to be when I published my first book in the 1960s.

  
Photo of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning
Writing

Can Writing Be Taught?

  • May 4th, 2025
  • Taken by the Shawnee, Carnegie Center Lexington
32.5kviews {views}

I face this crucial question whenever I am about to begin teaching another workshop, always now in memoir ...

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Book cover of Taken by the Shawnee
Writing

Moving Along Into 2025

  • January 8th, 2025
  • How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories, Taken by the Shawnee
32.5kviews {views}

Perhaps this great success of Shawnee is what all writers finally achieve—this is my sixteenth published book—but I doubt if it’s that alone.

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Book cover of Taken by the Shawnee
Writing

Moving On

  • November 27th, 2024
  • Margaret Erskine, Taken by the Shawnee, How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories
32.5kviews {views}

So many possible scenarios! So much fascinating reading!

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Black and white photo of Etowah Cliffs mansion
My Family Writing

My Next Book After My Next Book

  • September 18th, 2024
  • Taken by the Shawnee, How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories, The Blue Box
32.5kviews {views}

How fortunate I am to have access to this incredibly rich trove of letters! Now that letter writing ...

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Hand-painted watercolor of a bouquet of flowers
My Family

Clifford

  • September 11th, 2024
  • The Blue Box, Taken by the Shawnee, Caroline Clifford Nephew, Rose Caperton
32.5kviews {views}

Writing to “My Dear Mary”—her niece and my mother—in 1954, Rose Caperton explained that the three leather-bound books ...

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Photo of Sallie Bingham from the 1990s book Upstate
Writing Kentucky

À la recherche

  • August 18th, 2024
  • Kentucky, Writing, Taken by the Shawnee
32.5kviews {views}

I was single and at that time and in that place, single women seemed slightly suspect; when I ...

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Photo of three figures leaping over a bull
Women Writing Religion

Can  a Heathen Woman Be a Christian?

  • August 14th, 2024
  • Taken by the Shawnee, Religion
32.5kviews {views}

Perhaps a healthy dose of heathenism would restore us to the churches (or other forms of organized spirituality) so vital to healthy communities.

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Image of Tecumseh statue by Alan Cottrill
Writing

The Shawnee Have Their Own Park in Ohio

  • June 16th, 2024
  • Margaret Erskine, Taken by the Shawnee
32.5kviews {views}

Margaret, if she were alive, would smile secretly, shielding her pleasure from her censorious Virginia relatives.

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Doris Duke
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020)

Black and white photo of Margaret Sanger in 1879
Women Politics

The Zombie Law

  • June 26th, 2024
  • Doris Duke, Margaret Sanger
32.5kviews {views}

Michelle Goldberg’s column in The New York Times describes the 1935 Federal Comstock Act as a threat that Americans have not taken seriously.

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Photo of Margaret Erskine
Women Writing

Margaret in the Wilderness

  • April 2nd, 2023
  • Doris Duke, The Silver Swan, Margaret Erskine, Taken by the Shawnee, Ukraine
32.5kviews {views}

Surrounded by disasters of every kind, we are seeing the great strengths of our extraordinary adaptability, valued and valuable as it has never been before.

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Photo of Kristen Costa and Sallie Bingham
Writing

Doris Farewell

  • April 10th, 2022
  • The Silver Swan, Rough Point, 20 Favorites of 2022, Doris Duke
32.5kviews {views}

Thursday night I was privileged to present a conversation about my book and Doris Duke in one of the huge gilded rooms at Rough Point…

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Poster for the play Confederates
Writing Theater

Doris Redux

  • April 6th, 2022
  • Doris Duke, The Silver Swan
32.5kviews {views}

I’m about to leave New York City in its grey rain for Newport and Rough Point, the big ...

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Photo of Margaret Erskine
Women Writing

Margaret in the Wilderness

  • March 17th, 2022
  • The Silver Swan, Margaret Erskine, Taken by the Shawnee, Ukraine, Doris Duke
32.5kviews {views}

Surrounded by disasters of every kind, we are seeing the great strengths of our extraordinary adaptability, valued and valuable as it has never been before.

  
The Silver Swan book cover
Writing

The Silver Swan Sails Again

  • December 15th, 2021
  • 21 Favorites of 2021, Doris Duke, The Silver Swan, Duke Farms, Rough Point, Shangri La
32.5kviews {views}

Due to the generosity of a store here in Santa Fe called Travel Bug, I was able to ...

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Photo of Margaret Erskine
Writing Women

Two Women: Margaret and Doris

  • September 24th, 2021
  • Margaret Erskine, Taken by the Shawnee, 21 Favorites of 2021, Doris Duke, The Silver Swan
32.5kviews {views}

I’ve come to believe over the years that there is a core similarity that connects the lives of ...

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Still image from my Zoom talk, Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith
Writing Religion

Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith

  • March 17th, 2021
  • Doris Duke, The Silver Swan
32.5kviews {views}

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 I presented a talk to The Library Committee of The Church of the ...

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Doris Duke - Rubenstein Library
Writing New Mexico

Vindication

  • February 17th, 2021
  • 21 Favorites of 2021, Doris Duke, The Silver Swan
32.5kviews {views}

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s grant of 1.6 million dollars to pay for the digitalization of thousands of ...

  
Time magazine cover
Women Philanthropy

And Now, Margaret Sanger

  • July 22nd, 2020
  • Doris Duke, The Silver Swan, 20 Favorites of 2020, Margaret Sanger
32.5kviews {views}

Yesterday, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed the name of Margaret Sanger, “founder of the organization,” from ...

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Latest Comments

  • Zuleikha on Taken By The Shawnee: “Taken By the Shawnee was an exceptional story. Especially for me, the fact that it was in your family ,…” July 27th, 7:35 pm
  • Martha White on The Writer’s Nose: “Not all sweet peas are equal. Scent is difficult to breed. Happy to say we do now have professional breeders…” July 27th, 10:11 am
  • Martha White on Being Seventeen: “University in the 1950s: Some of us women adhered to the curfews set for women and attended charm class wearing…” July 26th, 9:57 am
  • Michael Harford on Being Seventeen: “The definition of an asshole is a young man in college. I was one. I spent almost fifty years thinking…” July 20th, 9:51 am
  • Patricia Owen on Being Seventeen: “Thank you” July 20th, 8:12 am

Watch Sallie

Taken By The Shawnee

Taken By The Shawnee

July 6th, 2025
Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
Visiting Linda Stein

Visiting Linda Stein

March 3rd, 2025
Back on October 28th, 2008, I visited artist Linda Stein's studio in New York City and tried on a few of her handmade suits of armor.

Listen To Sallie

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

November 8th, 2024
This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
Taken by the Shawnee Reading

Taken by the Shawnee Reading

September 1st, 2024
This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

Upcoming Events

Sep 23
All day

How Daddy Lost His Ear – Garcia Street Books

Garcia Street Books
Santa Fe NM
Sep 30
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm MDT

How Daddy Lost His Ear – The Church of the Holy Faith

The Church of the Holy Faith
Santa Fe NM
Oct 9
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm MDT

How Daddy Lost His Ear – Taos Country Club (Private)

Taos Country Club
Taos NM
View all of Sallie's events

Latest Tweets

salliebingham avatar Sallie Bingham @salliebingham ·
24h 1950228080947061144

In an attempt to make my latest writing workshop a little more fun this weekend, certainly for me and maybe for my students, I’m going to try to get them to think and write about using their noses. "The Writer's Nose": https://buff.ly/FkC5xAB

Image for the Tweet beginning: In an attempt to make Twitter feed image.
salliebingham avatar Sallie Bingham @salliebingham ·
28 Jul 1949897901854842933

I was a far-from-home seventeen-year-old, beginning to revel in the unexpected adventures and treasures of my sophomore year at college. I would never have expected that I would make a gift of my poems to my parents. "Being Seventeen": https://buff.ly/q5atKHQ #writing

Image for the Tweet beginning: I was a far-from-home seventeen-year-old, Twitter feed image.
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Recent Press

Sallie Bingham's latest is a captivating account of ancestor's ordeal
Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

“I felt she was with me” during the process of writing the book, Bingham says. “I felt I wasn’t writing anything that would have seemed to her false or unreal.”

Copyright © 2025 Sallie Bingham. All Rights Reserved.

Press Materials   —   Contact Sallie

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