In Writing Woman, Sheila Delany examines the artifact "woman" from a radical perspective. Each individual is seen by Delany as an "artifact"--made, not born --laboriously worked up, pieced together, written, and rewritten. Other qualities are added to this artifact through novels, poems, lyrics, ad copy, television scripts, nursery rhymes, and the English language itself. These layers of meaning result in the artifact--woman as topic. Sheila Delany traces her own development as a radical thinker in the opening chapter "Confessions of an Ex-handkerchief Head, or Why This Is Not a Feminist Book." She discusses bourgeois women in medieval life and letters; womanliness, marriage, and misogyny in Chaucer; sex and politics in Pope's The Rape of the Lock; the feminist utopias of Charlotte P. Gilman and Marge Piercy; and--in considering woman as writer--the scene, or place, of writing in Christine de Pisan and Virginia Woolf.

Ezell critically examines these successful women's literary histories and applies to them the same self-conscious feminism that critics have applied to more traditional methods. Drawing both on French feminisms and on recent historicist scholarship, Ezell points us to new possibilities for the recovery of early modern women's literary history. By championing the recovery of "lost" women writers and insisting on reevaluating the past, women's studies and feminist theory have effected dramatic changes in the ways English literary history is written and taught. In Writing Women's Literary History, Margaret Ezell critically examines these successful women's literary histories and applies to them the same self-conscious feminism that critics have applied to more traditional methods. According to Ezell, by relying not only on past male scholarship but also on inherited notions of "tradition," some feminist historicists replicate the evolutionary, narrative model of history that originally marginalized women who wrote before 1700. Drawing both on French feminisms and on recent historicist scholarship, Ezell points us to new possibilities for the recovery of early modern women's literary history.

"This collection of poetry and prose from women in recovery is a fire walk: a searing, barefooted dash over the hot coals of desperation, despair and self-destruction. Startling, often hypnotic photographs, supplied by one of the writers, drift through the text like sparks from the embers. These women have been burned into blessedness." Duane Tucker, Actor, Writer for Screen and TV, Passenger Magazine Poet of the Year 2002 "As a recovering alcoholic, "A Woman's Write - Strong and Free" reminded me of my own struggles and haunting past. I could relate to every poem and was enthralled with the quality, honesty and raw emotion the authors brought to each piece. Thought provoking and educational, I will read it again and again." Josie Penny, author of "So Few on Earth" twelve months on the Dundurn Publishers bestselling list. Words to Live By - by Susan Clairmont, The Hamilton Spectator The women call it freefall. Words, moving quickly from head and heart through to pen and paper. Silence, but for the scratching of raw poetry emerging on pages. Some are lost in it. Focused. Energized. Words flow fast. Others struggle. Thoughts trickle. It is Monday night in a sparse basement room at Womankind, an addiction service operated by St. Joseph's Healthcare. A dozen women are around the table. An unlikely group who, in most ways, have little in common. What they do have in common connects them immediately and powerfully. They are all recovering addicts. Some are alcoholics, some are drug users, a good number are both. And they are all authors. A Woman's Write: Strong and Free is a collection of poetry capturing the experience of women learning to understand themselves as they come to terms with addiction.

This groundbreaking study explores feminist theory and literary criticism embedded in seventeen works by Hispanic American authors and Latina writers in the United States. The books bring out women's philosophic and historic concepts of becoming a woman politically in the public sphere of society. Philosophers like Luce Irigaray and Deleuze and Guattari have realized that woman's representation in philosophic discursions are missing. The universal "mankind" or the omnipresent "self" can no longer ignore that women have different experiences than man in both the private and public realm. Each aesthetic work whether novel, poem or short story brings a woman-centered concern written by a woman author. The first fourteen lie in diversity; historic, national, cultural and ethnic experiences that Hispanic women undergo daily or during times of social upheaval, mainly dictatorships. How they write imparts experience and action in her trials of becoming multiple selves or subjectivities which theorists and female critics alike identify is missing from two thousand years of Western Philosophy. The stories are unique as the introduction underlines the basis of the concept of becoming which women may embrace in writing themselves politically in literature. The last four works by U.S. Latinas is further problematized through the process of immigration. Hispanic women on their way to becoming Americans have many factors to consider: race, gender, ethnicity, education and social class, which applies to all the main woman characters in each selective work. The criterion is set in the Introduction and applied to work which inspired it. Written from a multicultural standpoint draws from an interdisciplinary perspective whether, psychology, economics, feminist theories, philosophy and history. The study intends to look at ways of thinking the woman question and how she defines herself in the process.

This book is a detailed guide to creating complex female characters for film and television. Written for screen storytellers of any level, this book will help screenwriters and filmmakers recognize complicated portrayals of women on screen and evaluate the complexity of their own characters. Author Anna Weinstein provides a thorough analysis of key female characters in film and television, illustrating how some of our greatest screenwriters have developed smart, nuanced, and intriguing characters that successfully portray the female experience. The book features in-depth discussions of women’s representation both on screen and behind the scenes, including interviews with acclaimed women screenwriters and directors from around the globe. These conversations detail their perspectives on the relevance of women’s screen stories, the writing and development processes of these stories, and the challenges in getting female characters to the screen. With practical suggestions, exercises, guidelines, and a review of tired clichés to avoid, this book leaves readers prepared to draw their own female characters with confidence. A vital resource for screenwriters, filmmakers, and directors, whether aspiring or already established, who seek to champion the development of rich, layered, and unforgettable female characters for film and television.

The complaint of Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, that history has 'hardly any women at all' is not an uncommon one. Yet there is evidence to suggest that women have engaged in historical writing since ancient times. This study traces the history of women's historical writing, reclaiming the lives of individual women historians, recovering women's historical writings from the past and focusing on how gender has shaped the genre of history. Mary Spongberg brings together for the first time an extensive survey of the progress of women's historical writing from the Renaissance to the present, demonstrating the continuities between women's historical writings in the past and the development of a distinctly woman-centred historiography. Writing Women's History since the Renaissance also examines the relationship between women's history and the development of feminist consciousness, suggesting that the study of history has alerted women to their unequal status and enabled them to use history to achieve women's rights. Whether feminist or anti-feminist, women who have had their historical writings published have served as role models for women seeking a voice in the public sphere and have been instrumental in encouraging the growth of a feminist discourse.

While these playwrights articulate concerns similar to those of their male counterparts—social injustice, the question of identity, the role of art, the power of writing—their feminist perspectives offer a fresh view of Spanish America by challenging traditional male representations of women. While the plays humorously reveal the cultural and social politics of each country, they also examine seriously the absurdities of everyday life. The playwrights include Isidora Aguirre (Chile), Sabina Berman (Mexico), Myrna Casas (Puerto Rico), Teresa Marichal (Puerto Rico), Diana Raznovich (Argentina), Mariela Romero (Venezuela), Beatriz Seibel (Argentina), and Maruxa Vilalta (Mexico).

This volume critically analyses political strategies, civil society initiatives and modes of representation that challenge the conventional narratives of women in contexts of violence. It deepens into the concepts of victimhood and agency that inform the current debate on women as victims. The volume opens the scope to explore initiatives that transcend the pair abuser–victim and explore the complex relations between gender and violence, and individual and collective accountability, through politics, activism and cultural productions in order to seek social transformation for gender justice. In innovative and interdisciplinary case studies, it brings attention to initiatives and narratives that make new spaces possible in which to name, self-identify, and resignify the female political subject as a social agent in situations of violence. The volume is global in scope, bringing together contributions ranging from India, Cambodia or Kenya, to Quebec, Bosnia or Spain. Different aspects of gender-based violence are analysed, from intimate relationships, sexual violence, military contexts, society and institutions. Re-writing Women as Victims: From Theory to Practice will be a key text for students, researchers and professionals in gender studies, political sciences, sociology and media and cultural Studies. Activists and policy makers will also find its practical approach and engagement with social transformation to be essential reading.

Juliet Appleton is an officer’s daughter who is forced to make her own way in the world after her father’s death. Having been trained in typewriting and shorthand, she obtains employment at a law office, only to find that she cannot bear to work with her unpleasant colleagues and employer. Juliet possesses some of the characteristics of the infamous "New Woman": she has attended Girton College, she smokes cigarettes, and she travels the countryside on her bicycle. After various adventures, Juliet finds a new opportunity as a type-writer girl for a publishing company. She falls in love with her employer, and he with her, but complications inevitably ensue. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Canadian-born Grant Allen was a prolific professional author of popular science texts on evolution as well as a fiction writer. The Type-Writer Girl (1897) is one of only two novels he wrote under a female pseudonym, possibly to lend credibility to his first-person female narrator. The Type-Writer Girl invokes tensions typical of the fin de siècle concerning evolution, technology, and the role of women. This Broadview edition provides a reliable text at a very reasonable price. It contains textual notes but no appendices.