Women Writers

I was in the library the other day looking for a particular book which I found, but then I noticed, sitting on the shelf near it, the book "At Eighty Two: A Journal" by May Sarton http://great-writers.suite101.com/article.cfm/may_sarton_biography.

When my second marriage ended and I moved into a tiny cottage on my own, I felt very alone. Returning to the single life after seven or so years of being in a marriage, despite the fact that it was my choice to do so, was a major life transition. Although small and cosy in atmosphere, that house felt very empty and silent for quite a while. Around that time I found in a secondhand book shop May Sarton's book "Journal of a Solitude" and as it seemed so apt, I bought it.

My introduction to the world of this delightful woman writer was a joyful one - I felt so much in common with her, as do legions of her women (and men) fans around the world. So when I found another journal of hers in the library I had to borrow it. Once again it was a delight to be transported to the world of this woman, who even though grappling with the infirmities, indignities and debilities of age, creates a world rich with wonderful insights and descriptions - her beautiful house in Maine overlooking the ocean, her many fascinating friends, books she is reading, poetry, food, her beloved cat, flowers and so much else. I found with this book, as with the earlier one of hers, you quickly feel as though you know her so well, and slip into her life like an old friend. It was only a few months after she finished this book that she died, so sadly there will be no more journals. But there are earlier ones I haven't yet read, as well as novels and poetry, so I can add them to the endless list of books to be read.

One of the colleagues she mentions is Carolyn Heilbrun, a well known feminist and author, who was also an amazing character http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/n_9589/. In reading about her life, I came across this quote about her, which sums up so well what I find inspiring about so many women writers and of course hope to re-create in some way in my own writing, eventually

..."She argued for the importance of the uniquely feminine experience of reading in clear, candid language: "Women, I believe, search for fellow beings who have faced similar struggles, conveyed them in ways a reader can transform into her own life, confirmed desires the reader had hardly acknowledged, desires that now seem possible. Women catch courage from the women whose lives and writings they read, and women call the bearer of that courage friend."