Patricia Highsmith Comics. When Highsmith wrote the psychological thriller novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1955), one of the title character's first victims is a comic-book artist named Reddington: "Tom had a hunch about Reddington. He was a comic-book artist. He probably didn't know whether he was coming or going." Highsmith's first novel, "Strangers on a Train", proved modestly successful upon publication in 1950, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 film adaptation of the novel enhanced her reputation. Highsmith's second novel, "The Price of Salt", was published in 1952 under the "nom de plume" Claire Morgan. Highsmith mined her personal life for the novel's content.
Patricia S. Cowings Patricia S. Cowings Patricia S. Cowings (born 1948) is an aerospace psychophysiologist, and was the first African American woman scientist to be trained as an astronaut by NASA (though Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in space). Although she was an alternate for a space flight in 1979 she did not travel to space. She is most well known for her studies in the physiology of astronauts in outer space, as well as helping find cures for astronaut's motion sickness. Cowings was born and raised in The Bronx, New York City on December 15, 1948. She is