By Nava Atlas | On September 7, 2017 | Updated December 6, 2022 | Comments (0)
In Silences (1978), Tillie Olsen examined letters and journals of women authors of the past to comment on how personal circumstances affected their creative lives.
Best remembered for this book as well as the classic short story Tell Me a Riddle, Olsen reflected on other writers’ experiences as well as the impact of motherhood on her own of writing. She looked at how marriage and parenting impacted literary output and opportunities for success. Issues of gender and class are central to these meditations.
Fast forward to the present, when many more women writers are successfully combining being a writer and being a mother. It’s still not easy, and women are the ones who have to think about it and make such choices. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On September 6, 2017 | Updated December 13, 2025 | Comments (0)
On January 28, 2013, the Royal Mail of Britain celebrated the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with a set of six postage stamps.
Her other novels received the “royal” treatment equally, and included the five that rounded out her set of six: Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey (there were two unfinished novel as well, Sanditon and The Watsons, in addition to a posthumously published early work, Lady Susan). Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On September 5, 2017 | Updated December 6, 2022 | Comments (0)
Some years before Little Women made her famous, Louisa May Alcott volunteered as a nurse at a makeshift Union hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1862. The Civil War was raging. Alcott’s Civil War journals describing her experiences, along with the letters she sent home, provided the basis for Hospital Sketches (1863).
Though the experience was frustratingly short for the fledgling author who wanted to experience all of life, good and bad, her writings provided richly drawn views of the terrible conditions in the hospital, commentary on women’s roles in the war effort, race issues in the armed forces, and more.
Read more about Louisa May Alcott as Civil War Nurse. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On September 5, 2017 | Updated December 6, 2022 | Comments (0)
“I WANT something to do,” Louisa May Alcott wrote of her desire to contribute to the Union Army’s effort in the Civil War.
If women had been allowed to serve as soldiers, Louisa would have surely taken up arms. But as it was, the only direct way women could serve was to volunteer as nurses, and that’s just what she did. The photo at right was from around the time she served.
After the crushing defeat of Union forces in Fredericksburg, December 1862, Louisa began her duties as a nurse at the Union Hotel in Georgetown, Washington D.C. It had been hastily turned into a makeshift hospital. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On September 2, 2017 | Updated March 31, 2026 | Comments (4)
Jo March, the standout sister among the quartet in Little Women, is one of the most iconic and influential female characters in literature. Here we’ll take a look at ten women writers who were inspired by Jo March. Certainly, there are countless others — maybe even you!
What’s unique and wondrous is that the fictional character of Jo March influenced generations of women writers, more so even than the real-life author who wrote her into existence.
Tomboyish and ambitious, with a bit of a temper, Jo was an idealized alter ego of her creator, Louisa May Alcott. Read More→
Categories: 
Comments: