Tag: women and writing

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennet is a #Nastywoman and Her #Nastiness Changes the World.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennet is a #Nastywoman and Her #Nastiness Changes the World.

Posted by | Jul 20, 2021 |

If Donald Trump met Elizabeth Bennet he for sure would have called her a #nastywoman. Why? Because she would have openly and confidently spoken her truth to him and about him. She would have her voice with him and dare to openly question and criticize him. And that, to Donald Trump, makes a woman #nasty.  Elizabeth Bennet would not, however,  have fallen in love with Donald Trump, because unlike Mr. Darcy, Donald Trump doesn’t know how to give proper respect to a #nastywoman.  In Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice, the main character, Elizabeth Bennet  has a voice, a mind...

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May Sarton: Leaping the Waterfalls (1912-1995 American)

May Sarton: Leaping the Waterfalls (1912-1995 American)

Posted by | Jul 13, 2021 |

Spending summer 2021 in New Hampshire, I drive through Nelson quite often these days. Each time I do, I think of May Sarton, her years here, who she was, her art, and all she accomplished. I always glance down the road at the cemetery where she now rests.* This post is one I wrote about May two years ago and it feels right to run it again since I feel so close to her these days. Enjoy! May Sarton: Leaping the Waterfalls I’d been duped. The gray-haired writer who moved to the small town of Nelson, New Hampshire in...

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Vivian Gornick’s Taking a Long Look: What 2nd Wave Feminism Got Right That We Still Benefit From Today

Vivian Gornick’s Taking a Long Look: What 2nd Wave Feminism Got Right That We Still Benefit From Today

Posted by | Jul 6, 2021 |

I was excited to find a new collection of essays by Vivian Gornick, Taking a Long Look: Essays on Culture, Literature, and Feminism in our Time in a San Francisco bookstore recently. Gornick was a political and social issues writer for the “Village Voice” and other publications who eventually found the form of memoir and moved in that direction. She earned great acclaim for Fierce Attachments (1987) a memoir about her relationship with her mother.  She is now 84 years old and still going strong. This particular collection of essays literally takes a long look back over fifty years...

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Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: Being, Non-Being, and the Spiritual Continuum Holding Up the World

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: Being, Non-Being, and the Spiritual Continuum Holding Up the World

Posted by | Jun 22, 2021 |

In her autobiographical memoir, “A Sketch of the Past,” Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) writes of what she calls moments of being, moments in our lives that separate themselves out from all the other moments of “non-being.” These moments of being are poignant, powerful and transcendent. Moments of being can be so strong and meaningful that they remain with us all our lives in the form of memory. Over time they are called up again and again into our consciousness, building complexity and strong association with other moments of being, further ripening with potential for transcendence as we age.   Moments...

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Sonya Renee Taylor: The Map Back to Ourselves

Sonya Renee Taylor: The Map Back to Ourselves

Posted by | Jun 15, 2021 |

Since reading Sonya Renee Taylor’s book The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love and writing this post a little over a year ago, I have been keeping my finger on Taylor’s pulse, a pulse I value and need as I work to hold myself accountable and better understand systemic racism. (I highly recommend her recent TEDx talk Let’s Replace Cancel Culture with Accountability.) After Derek Chauvin was found guilty this past April, Taylor’s organization, also named The Body Is Not An Apology, stated on its Facebook page: “In @SonyaReneeTaylor’s second to most recent video, “Justice...

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