Audacious Women, Creative Lives

A mission statement of sorts for the next chapter of this newsletter

Hello! “Letters from Anne” has a new name: Audacious Women, Creative Lives.

I wanted something that more accurately reflects the content of these letters, and that expresses my long-standing commitment to connecting readers and writers with the path-breaking women of the past, so many of whom have been forgotten, undervalued, or misunderstood. This is what pulled me out of academia in the first place, to write so-called public scholarship (which basically means writing for presses and publications that actually have a readership).

I’ve thought long and hard about this name, which is provisional at this point. Everything about this newsletter, like life itself, is a work-in-progress. It has been growing and changing as I have. I imagine that will continue, but for now I feel myself settling into this new groove, which feels great. When I’m not writing, reading, going for a walk, or meeting with a writer I’m coaching, I’ve been thinking about how I would like for this newsletter to grow and evolve.

Why “Audacious”?

audacious: 1. Daring, bold, confident, intrepid. 2. Unrestrained by, or setting at defiance, the principles of decorum and morality; presumptuously wicked, impudent, shameless. 3. Inspiring boldness. (Source: OED)

Why “audacious”? Because being a writer feels audacious. For so long I feared taking the plunge. Think of the sheer risk of it. Because writing a memoir feels audacious. Who do I think I am? Because writing a novel feels audacious. You think you can write? Because leaving a career as a tenured professor, my home, and my marriage, to head out into the world on my own feels audacious. You think you can support yourself and survive on your own?

Zora Neale Huston was one audacious woman! (From LA Times)

Historically, for a woman to be a writer or an artist was itself sheer audacity. To live on her own or travel alone was audacious. These things still feel daring to us. A lot has changed for women. But not enough.

Leonora Carrington, “The Old Maids” (1947), artuk.org.

In addition to stories about Zora Neale Hurston and Leonora Carrington, I also have plans to write in the coming months about Muriel Rukeyser, Simone de Beauvoir. I’m not interested in writing bland profiles but in telling stories about the ways they dared in their lives and in their art.

I will also be writing about our own creative lives today, which can feel pretty daunting and lonely. I hope that by tackling subjects particularly relevant to women writers and artists now, this newsletter will help embolden you and expand your creative horizons.

What’s this Community About?

The simple idea is to write less about myself and my travels and more about living a creative life and the audacious women writers and artists who inspire us to make bold choices in our own lives. But it’s not enough to share these ideas and stories with you. I want to build a community around them. (And yes, that feels pretty audacious too, which is why it’s taken me a while to finally make a go of it.)

I imagine that most of you are here because you have been drawn to my work on women writers, my life changes, and/or my journey towards becoming a writer myself. So the mission of this new version of my newsletter is to connect with others who love reading about audacious, creative women, or are finding their own audacious way to a creative life. As this community continues to grow—with your help—there will be more opportunities to inspire and support each other.

Communities don’t just happen naturally. They need to be nurtured. And we are now connecting in a variety of ways in all kinds of virtual spaces. I’d like to experiment with some of them to see what works best for us. Substack offers chat threads, and we can use Zoom to meet for co-writing sessions or a reading club. There may be workshops or writing groups down the line. More ideas may bloom. We’ll see.

Hunger For Community

My life on the road, while it has led me to many new friends, has left me hungry for more community. I still don’t have a home and although I’ve made my peace with that and actually still prefer staying part-time in Scotland and moving around a bit elsewhere in Europe, I crave more opportunities to connect with people, particularly around shared passions.

As all of you who are writers know, writing is a very solitary affair. That is perhaps the most freeing, yet also the most daunting aspect of the writing life. Reading can be lonely as well. So whether you see yourself as a writer, would like to write more, or simply love reading about daring women writers and artists, you will find a home here.

My own hunger for community has three points of reference that I would like to draw on as I nurture this space for us.

• The Classroom

• Cummari

• The Biographers International Organization

First, I miss the give-and-take that I experienced in the classroom. My students challenged me and changed me. One particular class that I will never forget me put me on the path I’m on now, in fact, leading all the way to this newsletter.

I was teaching a course called “Scribblers and Mad Geniuses” about portrayals of writers and artists in antebellum American literature. Of courses we had to read Hawthorne and talk about his attitudes toward women writers. I read aloud this quote from a letter that he wrote to his publisher in 1855:

America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash–and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed.  What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of the ‘Lamplighter,’ and other books neither better nor worse?–worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by the 100,000.

I could see some of the female students squirming in their seats as I read this. So I paused and asked, “What do you think? I sense that you’re having a strong reaction to this.” One student, a writer in the MFA program, said, “Because it’s still happening today!” She shared some truly blood-boiling stories. (This was about ten years ago when the VIDA count was in the news.)

This was such a revelation for me, since I had basically been living in the 19^th century ever since I had started my Ph.D. Thereafter, I became passionate about wanting to connect women writing today with their foremothers from the past, who could be a source of inspiration and strength. Over the years, so many of my students were shocked to discover so many interesting women writers from the 19^th and 20^th centuries they had never heard about.

Second, I miss the female community of Cummari, the all-women coworking, coliving space I lived in for a month in Sicily last year. Cummari is a Sicilian word for female friends who are like family. The founder, Michelle, works hard to connect women travelers who come from all over the world. (See below for more information and some offerings beyond coliving.)

Michelle has been such an inspiration to me, and she continues to be. I’d love to bring women together face-to-face, which is a longer-term goal of mine. For now, there are lots of ways we can meet online.

Third, I miss the camaraderie of the Biographers International Organization. Writing, as I said, is a lonely business. But writing biography even more so. BIO was created to bring biographers together to share knowledge and resources. It was invaluable to me as I shifted away from academic writing, and I made many friends at conferences and by serving on BIO’s board for six years.

My main role on BIO’s board was to provide opportunities for members to meet virtually, something I was pushing even before Covid. So when the pandemic hit, I stepped into that role and organized virtual groups and online discussions. It was an incredible experience, but, sadly, I’m no longer writing biography and my term on the board has come to an end.

So there you have it. The classroom showed me the power of bringing readers together. Cummari taught me the value of female community. And BIO showed me how to bring writers together online. I hope you are as excited about the possibilities as I am.

A Community for All

For now, as this community grows, the newsletter content I post will be available to all subscribers. Paid subscriptions are still tremendously important, however. I will depend on them to put more time into Audacious Women, Creative Lives. Right now, I’m writing biweekly posts, but I’d love to have the time to write every week and also start hosting online get-togethers.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to those who have already given their support!! And if you aren’t a paid subscriber, please consider supporting this growing community.

Sharing with friends is also a great way to offer support. Thank you!!

You can also check out (and share) the new welcome page:

Yours in audacity,

Anne

P.S. Please share your thoughts, questions, suggestions. You can comment online by clicking below (should work even if in email). I always love to hear from you!

Some links:

• A blog post I wrote in 2013 about the class I describe above. I had totally forgotten that I’d written it, but a search of “Scribbling women” brought it up! (Keep scrolling when you hit the big blank break in the middle.)

• Biographers International Organization

• Cummari So worth looking at even if you aren’t planning a trip to Sicily. Michelle is including more offerings, including one online discussing the Goddess Docuseries that I’ve signed up for. And she said I could share this offer with you (expires April 1):