Harriet Reisen: Revealing the Real Louisa May Alcott

It is the type of book review veteran authors dream of reading.

"As Harriet Reisen's enchanting biography reminds us, Alcott patterned the March family on her own and Jo on herself … (Her life) is richly examined in Ms. Reisen's full and vivid portrait."

When Arlington's Harriet Reisen received that review – from Melanie Kirkpatrick of The Wall Street Journal of Reisen's 2009 book, "Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women" – it should be a magnet to readers to search for the writer's other works to enjoy.

But in Reisen's case, those readers will need to hunt down DVDs and CDs to hear examples of her earlier writing.

The reason is that for most of her career, Reisen wrote scripts for dramatic and historic documentaries and radio commentary for HBO and Public Broadcasting Service.

To put her writing life in context, before Reisen started her first book, she was honored with two regional Emmy nominations for lyrics she wrote for Jeanie Stahl and an award-winning video "Jersey Shore."

Yet in a talk she gave to Belmont Patch back in May, Reisen said writing came more naturally than producing video documentaries. Yet she always lacked confidence in her work, feeling that she needed to allow the visuals to support her writing.

Her wish to write a book was put on the back burner until she and her friend, Emmy Award-winning producer Nancy Porter, joined forces to create a documentary on Louisa May Alcott (that premiere on PBS American Masters on Dec. 28, 2009.)

Reisen was given the opportunity to write a book on the same subject using the primary sources she used writing the script. (Reisen stresses that the book is not an accompanying work linked with the American Masters documentary.)

She used her skills of narrative storytelling developed writing for television and cable – she is a former fellow in screenwriting at the American Film Institute – to her work.

Reisen also came to the project with a love for the subject. Like so many authors moved by Alcott's book, Reisen said Jo March, the central character in "Little Women" – and based on Louisa May Alcott – inspired her to become a writer when just the thought of that when Reisen was growing up in the 1950s was consider "wrong."

She came to the book without the credentials most publishing houses seek before accepting a book: she was not an academic with a background in the subject and had not written a biography (or a book).

But Reisen had done considerable work teaching at Stanford and Harvard Summer sessions and had written articles on a number of subjects in addition to her documentary work.

And publisher Henry Holt Co. was not disappointed as the book received outstanding reviews and made a number of best books of the year lists including the Wall Street Journal's best 10 books of 2009.

Reisen said she wanted the book – the first biography of Alcott in 30 years – to present a more complete picture of the author of one of the most influential of the 19^th century: that she was not a victim of her father, the philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott, she had a difficult early life but was someone who was independent with a sense of humor.

"That is what I hoped to accomplish and feel it came off better than I expected," she said.