Guest blogger, Linda Leedy Schneider If you wish to be a writer, write. Epictetus I believe that a regular writing ritual leads to discovery, authenticity, personal growth, publication and even JOY. I will share with you three ideas that have helped my private writing students establish and maintain a regular writing ritual. These are [...]
In a look at Carson McCullers’ stunning “The Member of the Wedding,” inContext explores how international sex symbols can be just like Frankie Addams.
Guest blogger, Cynthia Hogue Photo by Joanna Eldridge Morrissey Well, nothing is predictable with pain Did the old poets write of this? Adrienne Rich I’m writing about poetry and what I have come to think of as the dis/abling illness I have, and suddenly feel as blank as the blank page of the unwritten volume [...]
by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo The leaves are beginning to change color here in North Central Massachusetts. It’s my favorite time of year. Actually, I like it so much that my very favorite time of year is the time just before the leaves really start to color – at the very onset of fall. The just [...]
Welcome to this week’s featured writing prompt. Think of someone you loved or admired who has died. Imagine them alive now and responding to some event going on in the present – it could be something in your personal life or in the culture at large. Enjoy! and don’t forget to post your finished work [...]
Estonian composer Jüri Reinvere announced last week that he and the Finnish National Opera will stage an adaptation of Sofi Oksanen’s novel, Purge, in April of 2012. The story of two women navigating a common, brutal history of sexual exploitation and human trafficking under Estonia’s communist regime, Purge debuted as a play in Helsinki in [...]
by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo Fragmented. That is an apt description of my life. A succinct description. I’m not sure if I remember how to do one task from start to finish or just one thing at a time. I read it’s the most effective means of getting a job done; the most focused way. I [...]
Guest blogger, Tess Callahan As I sit here musing over this blog post, the sound of crickets pours through an open window. The chant is percussive and mesmerizing. This early autumn day still holds the summer warmth. Deep shades of green drench the maples and oaks, while a few yellow leaves cascade from the tulip [...]
by Laura Cude I recently came across an article in the online version of the Guardian about porn researcher Gail Dines’ latest book Pornland: How Porn has Hijacked our Sexuality (Beacon Press, 2010). Having grown up in what is often labeled as a mass sexualised culture, where erotic imagery and compromising positions are the norm [...]
Guest blogger, Leslie Larson Writers on reading tours can be pretty sure that—as soon as it’s time for Q & A—someone’s going to ask them where they got the story. That’s the word that’s usually used, got, as if the author might have picked up the story in the maternity ward at San Francisco General, [...]
Lauren Sardi interviews Patricia Leavy, feminist sociology professor and author. Leavy has become known for advocating innovative and artful approaches to conducting social research as a means of getting at the complexity of lived experience and linking the “inner worlds” of women to the social contexts in which they live.
Heidi W. Durrow discusses her novel, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky—winner of the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Fiction.
It is hard not to believe we’re in a time of empowerment of those less powerful, and to be swept up in the fervor escalating the world over. In 2011, we witnessed the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street protests and most recently, one of the largest protests of women in Egypt’s long history against the [...]
Caroline Palmer looks at the motivations of Minneapolis-based choreographer Ananya Chatterjea and the work of Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT).
Natsuo Kirino’s novels are not for the faint-hearted, nor are they for westerners loath to abandon the cultural stereotype of the Japanese woman as a delicate and beautiful “oriental flower”. Wendy Nakanishi explores the role of women in Japanese culture and society through Kirino’s popular works of crime and suspense.
