Powerful truths in women's voices
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 …
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 …
"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 …
Continue reading "Susan Weidener: A Christmas Wish for Every Writer"
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 …
In my nightstand I keep a small book that has spoken to me many times when life becomes a whirring blur of "to dos" and "musts" and "didn'ts." That book is Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001). Lindbergh wrote the book in 1955 while living alone on Captiva Island in Florida where she …
Continue reading "Anne Morrow Lindbergh on the Art of Solitude"
They say I'm a beast. And feast on it. When all along I thought that's what a woman was. from the poem "Loose Woman" by Sandra Cisneros Recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Sandra Cisneros is more than an award-winning author of novels, poems, and children's literature. A teacher, artist-in-residence, and arts administration, she has long been a force …
"Think of telling a story, not writing it." Brenda Ueland (1891-1986) is best known as a journalist and teacher of writing. She wrote radio scripts, covered the trial of Vidkun Quisling in Norway, and wrote several memoirs. The Norwegian Arctic explorer and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 67 year-old Fridjtof Nansen fell deeply in love with the 37 …
"The beauty of the living world I was trying to save has always been uppermost in my mind - that, and anger at the senseless, brutish things that were being done. . . . Now I can believe I have at least helped a little." Today, as we remember Rachel Carson (1907-1964) in the context …
"I think every immigrant becomes an amateur anthropologist--you do notice things about the culture or world that you come into that people who grow up in it, who are very embedded in it, simply don't notice." Eva Hoffman Eva Hoffman was uprooted from Poland in 1959 when she was fourteen and brought to Canada by her parents who …
Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning author Toni Morrison is known for her novels which explore the good, the evil, and the love in human souls. She has written numerous novels including The Bluest Eye (1970), Song of Solomon (1977), Beloved (1987), and most recently Home (2010). She has also written children's books The Big Box and …
Sandra Steingraber has been called a "poet with a knife". She is a renowned ecologist, a cancer survivor, award-winning author, mother, and poet. She is the Rachel Carson of our times calling us to wake up and rid our earth of the toxins that affect the development of our children. Like Rachel she has been attacked by …
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"Our stories are the masks through which we can be seen, and with every telling we stop the flood and swirl of thought so someone can get a glimpse of us, and maybe catch us if they can" Madeleine R. Grumet Madeline Grumet is Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel …
"We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs." Lisa Delpit is Director of the Center for Urban Educational Excellence. She is the author of numerous books on educating children of poverty and color and on improving teacher education. As a child she experienced segregation growing up …
Gila Green grew up in Ottawa, Canada and moved to Israel in 1994. Her short story collection White Zion was a finalist for the Doris Bakwin Literary Award (Carolina Wren Press). Her writing has been nominated for seven awards including The Best New Writing Eric Hoffer Award, Walrus Literary Award, TenTen Fiction Contest and Haaretz Short Fiction …
Tara Fox Hall’s writing credits include nonfiction, horror, suspense, erotica, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She also coauthored the essay “The Allure of the Serial Killer,” published in Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Her first e-novella, Surrender to Me, was published in September 2011. Her first full-length novel, …
Women, Words, and Wisdom 