Gabriela Mistral, born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (April 7, 1889 – January 10, 1957), was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist. Following is a selection of quotes by Gabriela Mistral.
Notably, Mistral was the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Vicuña, Chile she was raised in the small Andean village of Montegrande where her family was rather poor.
Though she stopped formally attending school at the age of twelve, she became an educator just three years later. As devoted to her work as a diplomat as she was to her writing, she began writing poetry and using her pen name, Gabriela Mistral.
Her poetry was fueled by heartbreak and wide, varied life experiences. Enjoy a sampling of 9 poems by Gabriela Mistral.
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In order to write, a writer must have to just look out the window and stare,” wrote Helene Johnson. “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” Virginia Woolf famously wrote. Renaissance House is not able to give money, but they do offer a room of your own with a window to look out and stare.
“The retreat provides the time in which to create new works or finish existing ones. Renaissance House is one of the few retreats designed for issue-oriented writers, writers of color and writers of social justice,” explained Abigail McGrath, founder and director of Renaissance House, daughter of poet Helene Johnson and niece of Dorothy West. “The program is offered to artists who do not have the luxury of time.” Read More→
Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018), born Ursula Krober, was known primarily as a masterful writer of science fiction and fantasy, though she wrote across many genres.
The imaginary worlds she created were commentaries on our real world, with all the complexities of human nature. She also produced children’s books, short stories, essays, and poetry. (photo at right courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)
Ursula K. Le Guin’s lifelong interest in mythology influenced her mastery of the fantastic in her writings. With an immensely prolific and respected career to her credit, she is perhaps best remembered for The Left Hand of Darkness and the Earthsea series. Lavinia (2008) also made quite a splash. Read More→
Mary Norton (December 10, 1903 – August 29, 1992) was a British children’s book author best known for The Borrowers series.
Born Kathleen Mary Pearson in London, she grew up in a manor house in the town of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, England, and attended a convent school.
In 1925, in her early twenties, Mary became an actress with the Old Vic theatre company. In 1926, she married Robert Norton. She and her husband moved to Portugal, close to his relatives, and lived there from 1927 until the outbreak of World War II twelve years later. The couple had four children — two sons and two daughters. Read More→
Do you remember feminist bookstores (for those of you old enough to remember, that is)? Oh, and do you remember independent bookstores in Manhattan? For a while, there were less than a dozen, but that seems to be on the upswing, and amazingly, there are lots and lots of indie bookstores in Brooklyn and Queens.
One of Manhattan’s few independent bookstores (and only feminist bookstore) is Bluestockings, located in the lively Lower East Side.
It’s more than than a repository for feminist thought; their shelves are filled with a beautifully curated selection of more than 6,000 titles on queer and gender studies, resistance/liberation, capitalism, climate, race, and a selection of rad children’s books. Also on the shelves are zines, journals, and poetry collections. Read More→
Emma Lazarus (1849 – 1887) was an American poet, translator, and activist best remembered for “The New Colossus.” Following is a sampling of poems by Emma Lazarus, a talented and dedicated woman who deserves to be rediscovered and read.
“The New Colossus,” her most famous poem, is the 1883 sonnet that contains the iconic “lines of world-wide welcome” inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Read More→
My Ántonia (1918) by American author Willa Cather (1873 – 1947), is considered one of her masterpieces in a body of stellar works. My Ántonia is the last book of her “prairie trilogy” of novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.
The novel takes place in 19th-century Nebraska and tells the stories of an orphan boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the eldest daughter in an immigrant family from Bohemia, Ántonia Shimerda, who were each brought to be pioneers. In the harsh prairie, Ántonia makes friends and improves the condition of the land.
The first year in the prairie leaves lifelong impressions in both children, a theme that’s explored throughout the novel. Cather was highly praised for My Ántonia, bringing the American West to life and making it fascinating to generations of readers.
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The Member of the Wedding (1946), Carson McCullers’ third novel (more accurately, it is a novella), followed the incredibly successful The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) and the far less successful Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941). The Member of the Wedding re-established McCullers, still in her twenties, as a literary force.
The story centers on a lonely twelve-year-old girl, Frankie Addams, who prefers to be known as F. Jasmine. Her mother has died, and her father, a jeweler, treats her with benign neglect.
The story takes place during a hot summer in a small Georgia town, finding Frankie consumed with worry that she doesn’t belong anywhere or with anyone. Read More→
