Powerful truths in women's voices
~ "A drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discolor everything." Alice Munroe ~ 2013 Nobel prize-winning author, Alice Monroe, is best known as the writer of incredible short stories that encompass all of the themes, symbolism, characterization of novels within the confines of elegant, but clearly written short works of fiction. A …
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 …
Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was recognized as a hero in her own day. An escaped slave, she repeatedly went back to the south and led other slaves to freedom, saving thousands. Outspoken and fearless, she was a passionate and influential speaker in both the abolitionist movement and in the fight for women's rights. It is very …
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"My Christmas wish for every writer: Give each other the gift of one nod or word of encouragement . . . find someone who believes . . . even if that person is you." Susan G. Weidener Former Philadelphia Inquirer journalist Susan G. Weidener runs the Women's Writing Circle. She is the author of …
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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 …
Born in 1835 in Columbia, Georgia, Augusta Evans Wilson was the first American woman author to earn over $100,000 until Edith Wharton did so in the 1920s. She wrote the first of nine novels, Inez: A Story of the Alamo, at the age of fifteen, and her second novel, Beulah, written at eighteen, sold 22,000 copies …
Faye Kellerman is a best-selling writer of novels of mystery and suspense. Born in 1952 she has written over thirty novels. Trained as a mathematician and a dentist she choose instead to write, propelled she says, by "a desire for justice, a suspicious nature, an overactive imagination, and, of course, a penchant for the bizarre. " Her …
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 …
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"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 …
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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 …
"Good women are rarely clever, and clever women are rarely good." Ada Issacs Menken Adah Issacs Menken (1835 to 1869) was a Civil War era actress, sex symbol, and pin-up girl. She was also a dedicated writer publishing 20 essays, 100 poems, and many newspaper articles. Menken may have been born Adelaide McCord in Chartrain …
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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 …
"...writing is so much more than words on a page. Writing contains their [the writer's]concerns, their social context, and their history." Phillippa Yaa De Villiers An actress, a screenwriter, playwright, novelist, and poet Phillippa Yaa De Villiers grew up in South Africa. The daughter of an Australian woman and an Ghanian father who was adopted by a white …
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“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 …
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Women, Words, and Wisdom 