From the 1988 Warner Books edition of Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler — Book 2 in the Xenogenesis Trilogy: “Human beings fear difference,” Lilith had told him once.
“Oankali crave difference. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need to give themselves definition and status. Oankali seek difference and collect it.
They need it to keep themselves from stagnation. You’ll probably find both tendencies surfacing in your own behavior. When you feel a conflict, try to go the Oankali way. Embrace difference.” Read More→
Here are 5 classic women authors’ homes to visit in England — see where Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Beatrix Potter, Virginia Woolf, and Vita Sackville-West lived and worked. At right, Beatrix Potter in the doorway of Hill Top House.
For aficionados of classic women authors, there’s nothing like visiting the homes in which they lived and wrote. Fortunately, there are many such homes that are open to the public, keeping the spirit of these authors alive for present and future generations. Many hold public events, and most feature libraries and archives.
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Dorothy West (1907 – 1998) played a role in the cultural flourishing and experimentation of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. Here we present quotes on identity and experience by this quietly influential author best known for The Living is Easy (1948) and The Wedding (1995).
Dorothy West started writing as a child and while still in her teens, her work was praised and received awards.
Her writing is admired for its nuanced views of middle and upper middle-class African American communities and how it comments on gender, class, and social structure through storytelling. Read More→
George Sand’s first novel, Indiana (1832), argued for the freedom of young women to follow their hearts, make their own terrible mistakes, and learn from them in order to grow and be true to themselves. Only then could they become equal partners to their husbands.
Indiana is a young woman married to a much older man. She falls in love with a rake who has seduced her own maid. Indiana’s passion is nonetheless awakened by her perfidious lover.
The restrictive French marriage laws of the time and double standards of the time created a perilous path for Indiana’s passage to womanhood. Read More→
P.L. Travers (1899 – 1966) found inspiration for her writing as an avid reader of fairy tales and mythology. It’s no surprise, then, that she created the magical nanny, Mary Poppins (1934). Here’s a selection of quotes by P.L. Travers, a complicated woman and talented writer:
After the original Mary Poppins book (always the most successful), there were several sequels, and of course, the famous 1964 Disney musical film.
The original Mary Poppins books were darker and more subversive than the Disney-fied version. And the film Saving Mr. Banks, depicting the making of Mary Poppins, starred Emma Thompson as the prickly author who fought Disney on every detail. And that still didn’t tell the whole story of just what a curmudgeon Travers could be. Read More→
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 – 1896) was the ultimate working mother, obliged to supplement her husband’s meager income to support their large family. Consciously using storytelling as social commentary, Stowe’s overarching theme is of writing passionately for a cause.
Though the literary merits of her work have long been debated, there’s little dispute that Uncle Tom’s Cabin caused a major shift in public perception of slavery. Read More→
From the 2004 HarperCollins edition of The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing: With the four short novels in this collection, Doris Lessing once again proves that she is unrivaled in her ability to capture the truth of the human condition.
The Grandmothers
Two women, close friends, fall in love with each other’s teenage sons, and these passions last for years, until the women end them, promising a respectable old age. Read More→
Harriet Beecher Stowe, (1811 –1896) author of the iconic anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), supported herself, her children and her husband with her literary talent. Following is a selection of quotes from the novels of Harriet Beecher Stowe, a modest author who changed the world with her words.
Stowe came from the Beecher family, a progressive group of siblings who supported her efforts. She was also blessed with the privilege of education, a rarity for women of her time.
At age 39, still in the midst of tending to her large family, Stowe found a way to disseminate the story she had long wanted to tell. She hoped that though storytelling, public awareness of the horrors of slavery would grow and shift national consciousness. Read More→
