In light of the recent New York Times victim-blaming screw-up (Kristin Cashore wrote about it here and you can sign the petition here), I wanted to give some positive energy to women and highlight some things important to women writers.
Laurie Halse Anderson is a lucky lady! She and her husband designed and built an eco-friendly writing cottage complete with a "magic window" rescued from a church. I teared up at the end of the video when she thanked her husband for giving her the best gift possible. It truly is!
My space is the loft in our house where I keep my desktop PC, a pink beach monkey lamp I got from Target, and my weighted keyboard where I play everything from classical to pop to my soprano part for my a capella group.
I had originally wanted a room with a door I could shut, just as Woolf instructed, but my boyfriend has since learned to play Call of Duty with headphones on so it stays quiet enough.
I haven't appreciated this space enough over the last year, and soon it will be gone when we move into a 1-bedroom apartment in April!
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Honolulu Girl Suz posted an interesting (and chilling/moving) video of James Bond becoming a woman in support of International Women's Day.
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And lastly I want to give praise for a woman's voice. The YA community I've entered so far is composed mostly of women writers, which I believe accounts for the warm and fuzzy quality of our community. This bodes well, gals.
It's not something I consciously think about during the writing process, but the fact that so many women give voice to their heartsongs and work our butts off to share these works with the world is a wonderful thing.
Keep writing. Keep speaking. Keep supporting each other.
The word is our power.
The story of the girl in Cleveland, Texas is so beyond heartbreaking, the fact that the victim is blamed is disgusting. Unfortunately, not uncommon. The story is quite big down here in Houston and the comments I've read about it make the NYT article look good.
ReplyDeleteSorry you're going to be losing your loft, it sounds so wonderful. I want to see a pic of the monkey lamp!
For three years I operated out of a 4x5 closet. Really. I had to stand on my chair to use the printer. The space was all mine, and I loved it.
ReplyDeleteWe moved last summer, and I have a room all my own. I'm surrounded by books, photos of my children and former students, and the artwork that accompanied the first two poems I ever sold. It's perfection.