Category: Women Writers
Keyboard Calling
Women writers with a calling to the keyboard, I salute you. For you insist on defining yourself, rather than allowing others to do it for you. There is something about you that says I have to be me – whatever the cost. And you have been willing to pay the price, because for you, there has [...]
Losing the Artist, Saving Her Art (Part 2)
Continued from Losing the Artist, Saving her Art Part 1. Eugenia’s physicians finally allowed her to travel with considerable misgivings, as she was 84 and had a metallic heart valve. Transatlantic travel is stressful one way or the other, but there was no holding her back. She wanted to experience the place that her daughter had loved [...]
Farewell From Assistant Editor Victoria Shockley
“When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I’m trying for that.” – Maya Angelou Roughly five months ago, I had a conversation with Anora McGaha, founder [...]
Interview with Canadian Writer Bolaji Williams
We met Bolaji Williams on Twitter. She responded to one of our tweets. We read a recent blog post and loved the clarity of her writing and topic, so we invited her to do something with us. Voila, an interview with writer Bolaji Williams. When did you first know you loved to write? To be completely honest, [...]
Book Review: Chimamanda Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck
In The Thing Around Your Neck, a collection of short stories written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the reader is exposed to characters that are many things, including a surprise to those who have been limited to a Western literary interpretation of Nigerian culture. Adichie insists on considering the wide variety of Nigerian stories to be [...]
Literary Festivals: From Jaipur to Beijing
Two countries, two civilizations, and two literary festivals. As a writer I had the pleasure of participating in this year’s Jaipur International Literature Festival in India. Six weeks later, I discarded my summer tops in India for woollen sweaters in snowy China to attend Beijing’s Bookworm International Literature Festival. I combined the festivals with a [...]
The Writer Who Began Quilting
I inherited my need to create from my mother. During the 1950’s she wasn’t content to sit quietly crocheting doilies or knitting sweaters; she Tolle-painted our TV trays and flocked our Christmas tree pink. As a teenager in the late sixties I played and wrote desperate love songs on my twenty-five dollar guitar and when [...]
Reflections on Native American Novelist Leslie Marmon Silko
It is a “given” that for bibliophiles like me, there is nothing better than curling up with a good read in a quiet house with a cup of steaming coffee – I take mine with cream and sugar. And there are scores of genres and sub-genres from which to choose. Romance. Inspiration. Poetry. Biography. You [...]
Standing Up and Speaking Out: Hip Hop Apsara
A blizzard in central Europe delayed my last flight to Phnom Penh by 30 hours, so I was sleeping poolside at my hotel when I got a text from Saem Vun, a singer with a musical group called The Messenger Band. I have known Saem since I chanced upon a concert she and her bandmates [...]
My First Publishing Contract
It’s every writer’s dream to receive an email that says, “We would really love to publish your book.” Well, it’s finally happened for me. I expected myself to jump up and down on the lounge suite like Tom Cruise on the Oprah Winfrey Show, but I didn’t. I just read over the email a few times to make [...]
