Angelica Carpenter
President

Angelica Shirley Carpenter is a third-generation Oz fan from St. Louis. Her first Oz memory dates from second grade, where she got in trouble for reading Ozma of Oz in class. Undaunted, she read her way into a future filled with books. Angelica became a teacher, an author and later a librarian. Any library where she worked soon offered Oz exhibits and programs and acquired a collection of Oz books for young readers. In the 1970s she discovered the Oz Club and began contributing to The Baum Bugle.
 
Angelica was working as a public library director in Florida when her mother Jean Shirley, the author of several children’s books, inspired Angelica to write biographies with her. The second of these was L. Frank Baum: Royal Historian of Oz. Jean, who founded the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in Florida, and Angelica, who served as president of two Florida library associations, began organizing literary events together with speakers like John Fricke, Gregory Maguire, and Meinhart Raabe. Since Jean’s death in 1995, Angelica has kept writing on her own. Her website is www.angelicacarpenter.com.

In 1996 Angelica became a contributing editor for The Bugle. She chaired the literary track of our Oz centennial convention in 2000, was elected to the Oz Club board of directors in 2001, and became our president in 2004. She is also a board member of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. 
 http://www.angelicacarpenter.comshapeimage_1_link_0

 

convention in 2000, was elected to the Oz Club board of directors in 2001, and became our president in 2004. She is also a board member of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. 

 

In 1999 she became the founding curator of the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature (www.arnenixoncenter.org) at California State University, Fresno. She lives in Fresno with her husband Richard. Their daughter Carey lives nearby in San Francisco.