From the Archives: Diane Wood Middlebrook's Controversial Biography of Anne Sexton.

Biographer Diane Wood Middlebrook. She's written a controversial new book about the troubled writer Anne Sexton. The controversy surrounds Middlebrook's source material: she had access to transcripts of Sexton's psychiatric sessions with the approval of Sexton's daughter and psychiatrist. Sexton killed herself in 1974. She began writing poetry in 1956 following a suicidal breakdown and after her therapist suggested she try writing poetry. ("Anne Sexton: A Biography," published by Houghton Mifflin).

Author Diane Wood Middlebrook has written "Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton." (Houghton Mifflin) It traces the life of jazz musician Billy Tipton who passed as a man most of her life. Middlebrooke also wrote "Anne Sexton: A Biography." She is a professor of english at Stanford University in California.

Sexton has just written "Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton," her seventh book. She spent a long time coming to terms with her relationship with her mother, who committed suicide in 1974.