Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing. –Gertrude Stein
Poet and novelist, Gertrude Stein was born February 3, 1874, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was raised in Oakland, California, and college at the Collegiate Instruction of Women (which later became Radcliffe College) and earned a degree in 1898. After a five-year stint at John Hopkins Medical School, Stein moved to Europe, eventually settling in Paris, France in 1903, where she was said to have lived by “private means.” She, along with her brother, was a prolific art collector and soon her home became a salon for new and leading artist of the period, including Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse and literary master, Ernest Hemingway. Said to have been a strong “influence on contemporary literature,” Stein published several books, including The Autobiography of Alice. B. Toklas, her lifelong companion. In 1934, she embarked on a lecture tour to America, where she spoke on literature and art. She would return to France and remain there through the end of World War II, befriending many American soldiers. Gertrude Stein died on July 27, 1946, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. The first American woman to have a public statue in New York City, Stein remains a strong presence in the literary world.
https://www.literarytraveler.com/articles/gertrude-stein-paris/
https://www.biography.com/people/gertrude-stein-9493261
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gertrude-Stein#ref671373
https://writersinspire.org/content/lost-generation