Forging Our Path at Midlife

by Diane Saarinen

Diane Saarinen: I can’t let the interview finish without focusing instead of on women but on you, Paola – you have, I’m holding a book called A Matter of Choice: 25 People Who Transformed Their Lives. And I read the essay on you in it, and you have such an inspiring story about someone who left corporate America, in midlife, and decided to do what you really wanted to always wanted to do — which was to be a photojournalist.

Paola Gianturco: I did. It’s true! Joan Chatfield-Taylor edited that book full of stories about people’s lives in transition. And my story, as you say, led from a 35-year career in advertising and marketing. And at age 55, I decided to take a sabbatical. I had been teaching as well as working with corporate communications clients all over the country.

And I thought I was, for one year – I didn’t think I was making a life-changing decision – I thought I was for one year going to do what I loved and wanted to learn next. And what I loved was photography and travel. And what I wanted to learn next because my whole experience had been in the corporate arena, was about women entrepreneurs in the developing world. The opposite range of that women’s working experience.

And I made that decision immediately after the Beijing Conference that had taken place in 1995. And I learned for the first time, that women in the developing world were sending their children to school with the money they earned. And that men tended to have the cultural [premitor] to spend the money they earned on whatever they wanted. And often it was radios, and beer, and so forth – and not their children.

And I thought: My God, the women are heroic! I wanted to document their work and their lives and I set forth – naively, not being a professional photographer, not being a professional writer – to do a book in one year. It took five! And I found myself so challenged and engrossed by this new avenue both of learning and creative expression, that although I continued to do some consulting for several years, enough to fund this new passion, ultimately I never went back full time to business.

DS: That’s amazing!

PG: Yes, it was!

DS: I love it though because it really tells people that if you have your own path, you go on it, and it can take a little longer than you think it’s going to take – in your case, you thought you were taking a year and this turned out to be like an all-encompassing project. And I’m glad you did it because I love your work!

PG: Well, thank you very much. And it turns out that I work just as many hours, like twelve to fourteen a day, but I’m doing something that I’m passionately involved in and I’m very excited about.

To hear the rest of the Her Circle Ezine interview with photojournalist Paola Gianturco, please return to our site on Saturday, March 8, 2008, when we will make the full audio available for listening. For more information on Gianturco’s books, please visit www.paolagianturco.com.

Writer’s Workshop: Allow Yourself Time to Create

Workshop with Waverly Fitzgerald, writing coach and author of Slow Time: Recovering the Natural Rhythm of Life.
Saturday, March 8th
12:00 pm PST/3:00pm EST

Do you have difficulty setting priorities? Do you dream of finding ways to put yourself – and your art – first? Seattle-based writing coach Waverly Fitzgerald gives demonstrations and exercises so you can set your plans and goals, while honoring your own commitment to yourself. Using her own brand of organic time management – or “slow time” – Waverly also teaches the difference between natural and artificial time, and how to align the creative rhythms to nature’s own flow.

Participation is limited. Registration required for this free virtual workshop. To attend contact us via email at events@hercircleezine.com.

Visit Waverly online at www.waverlyfitzgerald.com. To learn more about her book, Slow Time: Recovering the Natural Rhythm of Life, visit www.schooloftheseasons.com.

Missed the workshop? Not a problem. We’ve got the instant replay here.

One World Cafe Virtual Reading Series: Women Writing for (a) Change

Join us Saturday, March 8th for this very special reading from Women Writing for (a) Change.

Women Writing for (a) Change is a feminist writing community located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1991 by Mary Pierce Brosmer, teacher, speaker and published poet, Women Writing for (a) Change has grown in scope and in depth from its first small, rented home for fifteen writers to a movement in which women and girls “practice their voices” and go into the larger world to add women’s stories and women’s views to the critical conversations of our times. Women Writing for (a) Change offers weekly writing classes for women who are open to the change that a writing practice can bring into their lives. Daytime and evening classes meet for 15 weeks and form close-knit communities; over 80% of participants return from semester to semester. Since its beginnings, more than 800 adult women and 300 girls have been writers at Women Writing for (a) Change.

Restoring balance by amplifying and strengthening the “voice of the conscious feminine” is the heart of the mission of Women Writing for (a) Change. In 2001, it’s sister organization, Women Writing for (a) Change Foundation, was established to support the program of Young Women Writing for (a) Change—creative writing programs for girls and young women in grades 4 through first-year of college— as well as to offer scholarships for girls and women to attend its creative writing courses. In addition, the Foundation supported the development of our weekly radio show broadcast on WVXU, 91.7 from 1999-2005 (now available through our website) as well as School Partnerships, which offer after-school Young Women Writing for (a) Change programs at local schools. With the recent purchase of a permanent home in Cincinnati, 6906 Plainfield Road in Silverton, the Women Writing for (a) Change movement can now plant roots and continue its growth and deepening work of bringing the conscious feminine to the world.

Women Writing for (a) Change continues to grow out into the world, inspiring the founding of seven sister WWf(a)C schools in Bloomington, IN; Birmingham, AL; Burlington, VT; Grand Junction, CO; Indianapolis, IN; Portland, OR; and opening soon in Traverse City, MI. The movement has influenced organizations - nonprofits, schools, and businesses - throughout Greater Cincinnati, as both women and men attend its programs, and as consultants trained in WWf(a)C practices serve directly in social service, academic and other settings.

For more information, please visit our website: www.womenwriting.org.

Interview: Paola Gianturco

In Celebrating Women, photographer Paola Gianturco trains her eye on the world’s most vibrant festivals that honor women. These moving celebrations, idiosyncratic to their indigenous roots, take the form of parades, parties, competitions, and religious ceremonies. Gianturco spent five years photographing seventeen festivals in fifteen countries across five continents. Collected for the first time ever in a single edition, Gianturco provides insightful text describing the specific occasions and detailing their historic and cultural significance, culled from her extensive interviews with musicians, dancers, vendors, mask makers, costume designers, journalists, priests, governors, and spectators—not to mention a princess and a king.

Visit the author online, and join us Saturday, March 8th for an exclusive interview with the author.