Powerful truths in women's voices
~ It's Useless ~ “I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself” ― Simone de Beauvoir The French feminist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. She …
The Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice is the sponsor of The Peace Writer project which documents the lives and stories of woman working for peace all over the world. Women are paired with professional writers and videographers and enabled to tell their stories. The following excerpt is the story of Pauline Dempers …
I think of myself as a storyteller, but I would not mind at all if someone were to think of me as a feminist writer... I'm very feminist in the way I look at the world, and that world view must somehow be part of my work." Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian born writer …
Continue reading "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Feminism as Baggage"
Why do we need a day to celebrate and recognize women's accomplishments? All I have to do is look through the floor to ceiling bookcases in my office to know why. Most of the books are by men. Most of the history books are by men. Most of the textbooks are by men. Most of …
Sherley Anne Williams (American, 1944-1999) was a multi-talented writer who sought to bring the black experience to literature. Born into a poor family that lived by picking cotton and fruit, she became the first African American literature professor at the University of California, San Diego. She is known for her works of literary criticism, children's books, …
What would you do if you were named one of Time's 100 most influential people? For Ann Patchett the choice is to keep writing and run a bookstore - Parnassos Books in Nashville, Tennessee. "I'm never lonely around books," she has said about bookstores. "It's the world of endless possibility and opportunity to be …
What if you wrote a book, and then people said you didn't write it, and then people said you did, and then people said it doesn't really matter anyway. Meet Beryl Markham (1902-1986). Beryl Markham grew up on her father's horse farm in Kenya. She became the first licensed woman horse trainer in Kenya and …
At the age of fifteen Frances Burney (17752-1840), despite the tears of her younger sister, tossed the plays, poems and first novel she had written on to a bonfire. Why? She was consumed with guilt. In 1767 women were not supposed to spend their time writing anything but private letters. Better they perform useful household …
Continue reading "Frances Burney on What If Nobody Were Female"
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou Maya Angelou passed away on May 28th. A teacher, writer, poet, activist, and dancer she is best known for her series of autobiographical works detailing what life …
Continue reading "Maya Angelou on Being Aware of Being Aware"
Caroline Lee Hentz (1800-1856), one of America's most popular writers in the 1850s, sold over 93,000 copies of her more than fifteen novels and a multitude of short stories and poems. The Boston Library named her one of the top three writers of her day. Born in Massachusetts, she married a dashing French artist, writer, …
"Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can't--and, in fact, you're not supposed to--know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it's finished developing. First you just point at what has your attention and take the picture. " Anne Lamont Bestselling author, Anne Lamont, has …
"[If] you want to live, you have to die;" Annie Dillard American author Annie Dillard has been called a mystic, a visionary, a naturalist and a modern Thoreau. Her writing is characterized as literary collage of the lyrical, the metaphoric and the richly descriptive. She has written over eleven books including poetry, novels, essays, memoirs, and books on …
Risk, risk, everything. Katherine Mansfield Katherine Mansfield is best known for her short fiction. Born in 1888 in New Zealand, she died young at age 34. During her short life she wrote several volumes of short stories and critical literary essays. A free-spirited Bohemian, her personality as well as her writing, influenced the major writers …
“I had left even their spirits behind me. The wagon jolted on, carrying me I knew not where. … Between that earth and sky I felt erased, blotted out.” Willa Cather "My Antonia" Although Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia, she was a child of the prairies. Her parents moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska …
My identity is always changing everyday. The person who I was when I was a child is different from the person I was as a young adult and the person who I am now. And those shifting identities have to do with your own individual experiences and the sociopolitical context in which you live. Sonia …
In the 1930s Ida Pruitt, an American living in Peking, recorded the oral life history of Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai, the elderly mother of a man working for her husband. Ning lived in the city of Penglai in Shedong Province of China in second half of the 1800s and the early 1900s. Married to a man who was an opium …
Continue reading "Ning Lao T’ai-t’ai on the Life of a Beggar"
The only tired I was, was tired of giving in. Rosa Parks Christened "The First Lady of Civil Rights" Rosa Parks made history on a February day in 1955, when she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Because this was against the segregation laws of Alabama, Rosa Parks was …
If the American way of life fails the child, it fails us more. Pearl S. Buck (1982-1973) spent all her childhood and a good part of her adult life living in China. Most of her over thirty novels are based on this experience and were instrumental in shaping American views of life in China. In 1938 …
Continue reading "Pearl S. Buck on Making Meaning Out of Meaningless"
If you do anything in the arts, then you most probably have heard of Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way. Written in 1992, her book about inspiring personal creativity and empowering the artist within has become a mainstay of artists, writers, and others engaged in artistic pursuits as it continues to grow in popularity. The Artist's …
Did you once believe in Santa Claus? When you were a child were fairies and dragons and ghosts real? There is something special about the world of young children and their ability to simply believe. In the following excerpt from The House of Spirits, Chilean author Isabel Allende takes us into that magical time. Clara's …
Women, Words, and Wisdom 