Emma’s Comments (group member since Jan 03, 2016)

Emma’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Dear OSS Members:

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail’, he contemplates the use of the word “extremist”. Almost certainly in the context in which it was used to label him, it was meant derogatorily. Ultimately, he decides to embrace these labels and suggests that perhaps the world is in need of “creative extremists”. In spite of the fear of being seen as non-conformist, of creating disorder and tension when people so often value the contrary, King suggests that non-violent, direct action and creative extremism should be considered an important civic duty in the face of injustice.

It was my own fear of creating tension that made me hesitant to recommend Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, even though it is one of my favourite books. The title, I felt, was immediately ‘confrontational’. A close friend and activist explained to me recently that they don’t use the word feminist because it “just gets people’s backs up and that isn’t useful for getting anything done”. But if the purpose of good art is to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted”, I would argue the word feminism fits this task rather well. For those who have accepted into their hearts and minds the notion that society should function equally well for people of all genders and are uncomfortable with a status quo that doesn’t uphold that belief, the word has no rub. For those questioning, or for those who are uncomfortable with the necessary struggle it takes to move social justice movements forward, perhaps, yes it’s rather uncomfortable. For those who place ease or order (to go back to MLK’s letter) as most important in the hierarchy of things, I can understand why the word might be contrary to their goals and objectives.

Rebecca Solnit, author of 20 feminist books, so far, including her latest, Whose Story is This? Old Conflicts, New Chapters, strikes me as someone who has made total peace with her role of what some might call being ‘antagonising’ in order to do the very important work of telling the truth or getting as close as we can to it, with all the possible bias and participation mystique. In her essay from her new book, “They Think They Can Bully the Truth”, she demonstrates, in our increasingly authoritarian society, how dangerous our flippancy with the truth really is. “Lies are aggressions”, she says. “Gaslighting”, she further explains, is “a collective cultural phenomenon”, not just a concept that applies to individuals. Men’s outrage when women choose to speak their truth says so much about how, as a culture, even when women have been done wrong, their silence is implicit and expected. Silence in the face of wrongdoing has become a perverse and expected kind of loyalty. Commitment to accuracy even in your personal connections, is “resistance that matters”, Rebecca reminds us.

I have been curious to listen and watch as many commentators, even after less than a year or two, started to suggest that TIME’S UP and #MeToo had gone “too far” - despite the acknowledgment that sexual harassment among girls and women was at epidemic proportions and that it was affecting their work lives. At the end of 2019, known perpetrators have not gone to jail and many still enjoy flourishing careers. But it’s all still…too far…which boggles my mind slightly.

I think a crucial part that many commentators missed was how significant it was in and of itself that women were speaking up. If you have never been part of a majority that has been silent for thousands of years, this act might not register as revelatory, but to the women who have suffered, that is indeed what it was and is. Rebecca puts it so beautifully when she says: “The feminine has just crawled out of the water, it hasn’t stood up”. To come out and comment on a woman speaking her truth as being a disproportionate response, when the woman speaking that truth has no say in what the punishment for the abuse uncovered actually is, but was asserting a long overdue, nerve-wracking but important human right, did seem at best misguided and at worst offensive.

I would not be doing Rebecca justice simply to call her an adept disrupter and seeker of ‘truth’. Her craft is also beautiful. At the beginning of the chapter titled “Long Distance”, she says, “The present is by common definition, the instant between the not yet and the already, a moment as narrow as a tightrope”. Sentences like this are so taut, rich and elegant... You all of a sudden find yourself at spiritual epiphany when you thought you were absorbing information about current affairs.

Her writing is also generously personal. In “On Women’s Work and the Myth of the Art Monster”, she argues that “good creative work” is feminine, IS nurture. She makes a stand on behalf of her own life choices in a way that is truly moving (and enlightening). Rebecca just thinks about things in a different and liberating way. In “The Problem with Sex is Capitalism” (one of the all-time great essay titles) shots are fired. I won’t ruin it for you, but the mix of the rousing, the spiritual, the political, the personal and the humorous all together is completely exhilarating.

This is, after all, a book club, and perhaps my favourite Rebecca moment from the book is her discussion on knowledge. “It is an old truism,” she says, “that knowledge is power. The inverse and opposite possibility - that power is ignorance - is rarely aired. The powerful swathe themselves in obliviousness in order to avoid the pain of others and their own relationship to that pain. It is they from whom much is hidden, and they who are removed from the arenas of the poor and powerless. The more you are the less you know.” Her book and all of her books give us the chance to “know” more and that we should want to know more. I am grateful to Rebecca for her work as ‘creative extremist’, ‘nurturer’ and ‘truth seeker’. I feel better able to see, feel and express myself because of her. We all have many different types of mothers - intellectual, creative, political - Rebecca Solnit is one of mine... and I don’t care if it antagonises anyone to say so. I hope you enjoy these Our Shared Shelf picks for November/December: Whose Story Is This? and Cinderella Liberator. Do look back at Men Explain Things To Me as well, if you have time.

All my love,
Emma

Kai Cheng Thom, our next Our Shared Shelf author, describes herself as “a spoken word performer, lasagna lover, wicked witch, and community worker based in Toronto, Canada, a city that stands on unceded Indigenous territory.”

As if that isn't enough to make you curious… It's the book cover of her first novel, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir that draws you in. It just LOOKS like a fun adventure. And indeed, it walks the tightrope between contradictions - serious and fun, fantasy and reality, poetry and prose, memoir and fiction, delicate and violent.

Set in the Street of Miracles, our protagonist (who happens to be a kung-fu expert and pathological liar) joins a gang of glamorous warrior femmes. It’s a story of broken hearts and healing sisterhoods. Thom says:

"The basic idea for Fierce Femmes was to create a loving homage
and critical re-imagining of the transgender memoir genre. For many
generations, trans writers have been pigeonholed into writing memoirs
that are intended to educate cis people about the reality of trans life.
They were denied opportunities to publish in more creative and
fantastical ways. Fierce Femmes is a response to all that, and a
role reversal of the stereotypically, tragic portrayal of trans women
characters - rather than simply experiencing the violence of a
transphobic world passively, my characters dare to fight back,
even when it takes them down some morally questionable paths."

Kai Cheng Thom weaves a story complete with mermaids, killer bees, kingdoms, ghosts and battles! Fairy tales like King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table captured my imagination as a child…the aliveness of Ovid’s Metamorphoses stories still resonate for me. I love that Thom uses both the otherworldly and the story archetypes of mysticism and transformation we know so well to tell us something new.

Many of us have been encouraged to see gender as binary. In some languages even inanimate objects are gendered! But you wouldn’t try and gender a unicorn, would you? It’s just a unicorn. I love that this book makes us transcend the ordinary and therefore transcend the usual dogma and boundaries our past makes us hold on to.

Naming the protagonist a notorious liar makes me think about the unreliable or mythical narrator…if the past is a tactile thing, we have the power to shape our stories, not just to others, but to ourselves. If we can reimagine our past, we can re-mold it; decide which truths we digest and interpret as being ours and which ones we can disregard. We can use metaphors, shapes and symbols to make our pain less of an unknown entity…less slippery. Does this give us more agency? I love the idea that not telling the story accurately or by rote might hold more of the truth of the experience in it for us.

With Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, you really get the sense of creativity and invention that comes from becoming your own woman - an artist of your own identity. It may be a natural inclination to be nervous of what we do not know. Here is an author who builds us another world, expanding our view. This is a privilege. This is writing at its best. Enjoy being touched by the sparkle, warmth, community, violence and fierceness of the world Kai Cheng Thom has created.

Love,

EmmaXX

Dear OSS Members,

I am excited to announce that July/August's pick for Our Shared Shelf is our first poet, Rupi Kaur, and her book of poems Milk and Honey. Rupi Kaur is an Indian-born, Canadian-raised poet and artist. She chooses not to use upper case letters or punctuation in her poems as an ode to her native language, Punjabi. She travels the world, including recently to her native country India, performing her poems and drawing crowds of hundreds. Both of her books, Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers, have made the New York Times bestseller list, which for a poet, is astonishing.

Over my lifetime, I have fallen in and out of love with poetry. Performing poems was what got me into acting (I had a primary school teacher that made everyone learn one a week, and eventually I won a poetry recital competition!) In secondary school and at university, I loved deciphering the codes of poems in class discussion, but I honestly wondered if poetry would continue to feature in my life outside of an academic context.

Enter poets like Hollie McNish, Sabrina Mahfouz and Rupi Kaur- I demolished whole books in single sittings. Unlike poems I have often spent weeks unraveling, Rupi’s poems are not designed to obscure meaning or entertain too much ambiguity - they hit you like punches to the stomach. They are immediate, visceral and not easily digested. I am loathe to say Rupi has made poetry “accessible” because while this is the truth (Rupi’s poems and illustrations fit well into those famously square shaped Instagram frames), there is nothing easy or accessible about what Rupi chooses to talk about. In fact, the topics she chooses, are audacious.

Here is a 25-year-old girl saying the unsayable… to hundreds of thousands of people:
that she has been raped, that at times she has been abused, that she bleeds. And sin of all sins… she actually likes the hair that grows on her body. Yes. She actually thinks it is beautiful. And that she is beautiful as God made her - what a transgression. That her body is her home and nobody else's.

The last chapter of Rupi’s book is called ‘The healing’. I am astounded to think what grew in the garden of her heartbreak. Her sharing, leadership and representation is so generous and brave. I will be forever grateful that she took subjects, that as a woman, I still carry shame about, and made them art. It took me an extra step forward and gave me new language.

All my love,
Emma

Dear OSS,

One of the most memorable moments of the year for me, so far, was the honor of walking beside activist and friend, Marai Larasi at the Golden Globes. Along with learning that movements are both rewarding and really hard work, my involvement with #TimesUp in the UK and in the States is showing me how much we can do together when we stand in solidarity and how incredibly important it is for those who have privilege to use whatever they can to amplify the voices of those who are less often listened to. These are a few of the many reasons why I have chosen Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries for this month’s book.

Having always felt deeply impatient and limited by having to express myself in perfect grammar and punctuation (this was pre-apostrophe gate!), I am quietly reveling in the profundity of Mailhot’s deliberate transgression in Heart Berries and its perfect results. I love her suspicion of words. I have always been terrified and in awe of the power of words – but Mailhot does not let them silence her in Heart Berries. She finds the purest way to say what she needs to say. She refines… How beautiful are these sentences?

“I learned to make a honey reduction of the ugly sentences. Still my voice cracks.”

“When you told me, I want too much I considered how much you take.”

“I feel like my body is being drawn through a syringe.”

“I felt breathless, like every question was a step up a stairway.”

“Nothing is too ugly for this world I think it’s just that people pretend not to see.”

“I woke up as the bones of my ancestors locked in government storage.”

I won’t go on because I don’t want to ruin this book for you, but the writing is so good it’s hard not to temporarily be distracted from the content or narrative by its brilliance.

In her first paragraph, Mailhot writes, "The words were too wrong and ugly to speak. I tried to tell someone my story, but he thought it was a hustle." Space is needed for pain; people need to be believed and to be able to tell their stories. Roxane Gay says it so perfectly when she describes the book as an "open wound, a need, naked and unapologetic." Perhaps, because this author so generously allows us to be her witness, we are somehow able to see ourselves more clearly and become better witnesses to ourselves. This has certainly been my experience.

It feels right and vastly overdue to be reading a story from a First Nation woman with her perspective of a colonial world. I loved her keen observations of white people (like me) and their ways. It’s critical to be reminded that there are ways of thinking and seeing things that endure and have existed long before colonizers. There are a million ways to think about things! It’s good to have this named.

I read this book in one sitting, but I know I will come back to lines in it to refer to again and again and again. I felt transformed by having read Mailhot’s book as if she channeled some of her brilliance to me through osmosis. As though magically just through having read her writing, I myself became more intelligent and a better writer without having to do ANYTHING!! That’s how good she is! Her work is inspiring, in the way the best things are - you instantly want to go and DO and create yourself as a result of having come into contact with it.

With all my love,
Emma and Team Our Shared Shelf

Dear OSS,

There is so much racism, both in our past and present, that is not acknowledged and accounted for. I know this to be the case from my own education, and I know there is so much more for me to learn. This is why I’m excited to announce that our first book of 2018 is Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge which talks about the history of racism in Britain, and ways we can see, acknowledge and challenge racism. I am not supposed to have favourites, however this was the most important book for me this year.

When I gave my UN speech in 2015, so much of what I said was about the idea that “being a feminist is simple!” Easy! No problem! I have since learned that being a feminist is more than a single choice or decision. It’s an interrogation of self. Every time I think I’ve peeled all the layers, there’s another layer to peel. But, I also understand that the most difficult journeys are often the most worthwhile. And that this process cannot be done at anyone else’s pace or speed.

When I heard myself being called a “white feminist” I didn’t understand (I suppose I proved their case in point). What was the need to define me — or anyone else for that matter — as a feminist by race? What did this mean? Was I being called racist? Was the feminist movement more fractured than I had understood? I began...panicking.

It would have been more useful to spend the time asking myself questions like: What are the ways I have benefited from being white? In what ways do I support and uphold a system that is structurally racist? How do my race, class and gender affect my perspective? There seemed to be many types of feminists and feminism. But instead of seeing these differences as divisive, I could have asked whether defining them was actually empowering and bringing about better understanding. But I didn’t know to ask these questions.

I met a woman this year named Happy who works for an organization called Mama Cash and she told me this about her long history working in the women’s sector: “Call me out. But if you’re going to call me out, walk alongside me as I do the work”. Working alongside women like Happy is a privilege. As human beings, as friends, as family members, as partners, we all have blind spots; we need people that love us to call us out and then walk with us while we do the work.

This has been an amazing two years for me, working on Our Shared Shelf. There were moments when I wondered whether the club should be an ongoing thing. Thank you for making me sure that it would be crazy not to keep going in 2018.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed, laid themselves bare, been patient and compassionate or shared useful information with other members of the community. Thanks to those who hid books and posted their photos to Instagram, or started a talking circle or smaller club and met up in different parts of the world.

Everyone has their own journey, and it may not always be easy, but what I can promise is that you’ll meet some extremely cool people that you will REALLY love and respect along the way that will walk this path with you. You’re not alone. And even if you are, in a particular moment...remember you come from a long line of feminists who did this work, in the outside world but also inside themselves. As we move into 2018, I hope Reni Eddo-Lodge's book empowers and inspires you as much as it has me. I am looking forward to discussing it in more detail with you soon.

Love,
Emma xx

Our next book will be a speculative fiction novel called The Power by Naomi Alderman, winner of the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. The book asks a question we might have all asked at one time: what would the world be like if women were in charge?

In the book, teenage girls all over the world begin to develop the ability to do harm by transmitting electricity through their fingertips. News spreads quickly over social media and soon the girls are teaching older women how to harness their dormant powers. In a few short years, gender roles are reversed and the world is run by women. As governments are toppled, a new woman’s republic is born, and there’s a single new religion led by a cult leader called Mother Eve.

The book follows four main characters: Tunde, a male journalist who is following the emerging stories, and three women with new found powers, Roxy, Allie and Margot. Their paths cross as the world is heading into political and religious turmoil.

Alderman challenges the cliché that women are more noble than men, and that a world run by women would be more gentle, with benevolent leaders and no war. In fact, women become power hungry and begin to repress men. They commit war atrocities, perform male genital mutilation, rape and maim for sport and kill to occupy land.

With power dynamics reversed, the women don’t choose a righteous path - they act no better than men who have abused power throughout history. I think Alderman’s point is that people who abuse, do so because they can.

Alderman presents the main part of the book as an early manuscript of an historical novel, written thousands of years in a future where women still rule, by a male novelist ‘Neil Armon’. Through letter exchanges between Neil and his mentor, a female writer called ‘Naomi’, we see a world where men’s worth is only in their looks and ‘men’s literature’ isn’t taken as seriously as women’s. This is a really clever literary device which highlights how absurd rigid gender roles are.

Neil thinks he can prove that women weren’t always the ones in positions of power, but Naomi can’t see how the history books would lie. Neil’s reality is one where men’s contributions to history have been misattributed, or even stolen, by women.

This made me think about the fact that history was written by those who held the power. It also made me think about how the distribution of power and gender roles throughout history often seems arbitrary, and how they could have perhaps ended up very differently.

I’m excited to hear what you all make of the novel.

Love,
Emma and the Our Shared Shelf team

Hello everyone,

Roxane's answers to your questions are below. Please join me in thanking her for contributing to Our Shared Shelf.

Love,
Emma x


From Griselda: Has writing this book helped you heal in any way?

I don't know if this book has helped me heal but it has forced me to take a hard look at myself and some of the behaviors I've developed over the years. Getting honest with yourself can be a difficult thing but I've found it really worthwhile.


From Melody: When you were working on this text, did you ever worry that your personal story about your trauma and relationship with food would be used to further this negative stereotype of fat people?

No, I did not worry about this at all. I cannot control what people do with what I put into this book and if people believe stereotypes about fat people, they are the problem, not me.


From Anshita: In chapter 41, you said, there are good days when you know your body is not the real problem and bad days when you cannot separate yourself from your body. How do you stay encouraged at such bad days? What is your view on staying motivated for a person who is a constant want of validations that accompany weight loss from others?

On bad days, I allow myself to feel bad because I know it is not going to last forever. I try to do small things to make myself feel better, whether it's going for a walk or watching a movie. I try to remind myself that my self-worth has nothing to do with my body. I think most of us crave external validation but I do know that external validation is fickle. It's important to find ways to motivate and validate yourself. A key way to do this is to acknowledge the strides you make toward whatever you goal is.


From Ross: How did you choose when to write Hunger?

I decided to write Hunger just before Bad Feminist came out. I was thinking about what I wanted my next nonfiction book to be and I thought, "The book I want to write least is one about fatness," and in that terrible moment I knew that was the book I needed to write. Then I dragged my heels for three years before actually writing it.


From Charlene: What is one book you would recommend to Our Shared Shelf?

I would recommend Pachinko by Min Jin Lee which is one of the best novels I've ever read. I'd also recommend the essay collection We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby--absolutely hilarious.


From Pouya: Which way do you think is the best to educate people and stop abuse before it happens?

I have no idea... as a society we have no good answer to this question but I do think people with abusive tendencies need therapy, intensively. And we need better laws so that the threat of legal consequences becomes a deterrent.


From Jesse: What do you think we as a society can do to foster environments where people feel safe expressing their experiences and fears?

We can all have more empathy for one another and we can allow people the space to be vulnerable without judging what comes from that vulnerability.


From Robert: You have survived a great deal, including no small measure of assumptions, hostility, and derision by those you are close to, and by those who presume to know you but do not. What advice would you give to young people who are enduring similar struggles with identity, fear, shame, and the physical out-workings of those struggles (weight gain, eating disorders, etc.)?

I would tell young people dealing with similar issues to recognize that the people in their life judging them harshly or treating them poorly are the real problem. They are not to blame for how people treat them. And I would encourage them to find at least one thing to love about themselves because it's important to have a bit of faith in yourself.


From Simone: In writing this book do you ever feel hard or scared to reveal and analysis yourself completely?

I was terrified to write this book and even more terrified to publish it and have people reading it. I did what I often do when writing from the personal-- I told myself no one was going to read it and so it didn't matter what I said.

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

Excited to let you know that Roxane Gay has kindly agreed to answer our questions about Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. Please post your questions for her in this discussion and then look out for responses later this month.

Emma x

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

Roxane Gay describes her book ‘Hunger’ as a “memoir about my body”. It traverses many of the issues surrounding our human bodies, the sexual experiences we have, our relationship with food, how we feel about our own bodies and the difference gender has to play on a body… When exploring how society treats people of her size, Gay asks: “What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?”

What struck me the most about the book is Roxane’s searing honesty. We know that there are many people of all genders who do not feel they can talk about their experiences - who live their lives carrying the huge burden of abuse and trauma. As the author suggests, many people do not realise the suffering that follows an act like the one Roxane experienced, and how it can completely alter the way the victim identifies with themselves and others.

While parts of the book are difficult to read, it highlights the very real damage done by sexual violence and puts you in the mind and body of someone that has to move through the world in a different way. A small insight or perspective I feel grateful for now having and understanding a little bit better.

I am also re-reading essays from Gay’s ‘Bad Feminist’. We put such high expectations on ourselves as feminists, on other feminists, and the movement as a whole. It feels like such a relief to take ownership of words like “nasty woman” and “bad feminist”. They don’t have so much power this way and maybe they remind us not to hold ourselves and others to unreasonably high standards - we are all human after all and at different moments of our learning journeys. We need to feel free to be on those journeys and make mistakes. I hope if you get time you’ll enjoy what she has to say about this too.

Love,
Emma

From Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés to Our Shared Shelf.... 

Thank you everyone for your questions. I’m sorry to have taken so long to answer for it takes me a long time to think things through and then to write in response to you. I have also been saving up for eye surgery for as you know, sometimes in age, you lose your acute sight, even though inner sight grows stronger yet. Soon I will be able to read text more easily again. It meant the world to me that you all asked such good questions, and especially dearest Emma, Summoner of 'the people of the book tribe,' thank you so much for bringing my work before the eyes and hearts of all dear readers here. May all be watched over and kept safe till our paths may cross again. In the meantime, I promise my prayers to you all, for your callings and intentions. Remember: All the good you are seeking, is also seeking you. Hold that thought. 
This comes with love,
Dr.e. 

Q (from Christina): Akin to the dark themes in Bluebeard, women in contemporary modern society still face "imprisoning" phenomena like the proverbial glass ceiling and social typecasting. Globally, in less developed parts of the world, the picture grows even dimmer. Other than the more "momentous" events like marches and protests, what are some everyday tools, means, acts with which women can unite in a modern, effective way to break through the myth-holding meta-narratives? 

A: Dear Christina; I can say what I teach and what I do here where I am domiciled: create small groups of support and help, push for, protect, teach, act LOCALLY. The world is made like a giant clock. We can tune the gears to be in better balance in the smaller cultures we all live in. The world clock can ever be better attuned thusly. Educate people so they can know with certainty how to think clearly, how to use their wild instinctual natures to look behind things, underneath things to see what the motives truly are, to test assumptions, to find the ways through, leap like a wolf over walls set against goodness, do an end run, and throw a Hail Mary Pass, meaning, take chances. Your soul, your ever-inquiring child spirit, your goodness of mind, your sanctity of heart will ever guide you. And I know you know not to go off with someone with a beard that looks oddly blue, that will take you from your gifts and gut you. Instead, with wisdom and determination, you go toward what gives light in order to light what is not yet fully lit. Be the first, or the only, or the last one, or one of the many of great good. All shine so others can also see the ways through.


Q (from Kathy): Which female character or characters (from traditional folktales) do you believe would be the best guide for women today? Why? 

A: Dear Kathy, suddenly my fingernails grow long and my hair all white and askew [well the long white hair part is already true, lol] and I step into my mortar and pestle and row through the night seeing just what and whom needs my touch and my prayers. Baba Yaga! She would be but one. I purposely wrote Women Who Run with The Wolves in a certain pattern, with certain poems, family stories, vignettes, autobiographies and commentaries meant to flow into each other in a certain order, with stopping, resting and contemplative places in the text placed just so. I wrote each chapter and often enough each page to stand alone, so one could stop and start easily, if one wished. Thereby each heroine including those who made errors, those who willed out at the end, are all part of our individual psyches. We are the naive sister in Bluebeard until wised up, we are Vasalisa, we are the Handless Maiden, we are the Yaga, we are the Match Girl. We are made of many selves in a sense. Some become background as we learn and grow, some take the lead at different times of our lives. It is not by rote, but again, a customised endeavour. You know yourself best, and by using your wildish impulses and instincts, you know the best way/model for you.


Q (from Alisa): This is brought up as an element in the Vasalisa tale - the jealous/envious stepmother/stepsisters. Vasalisa combats this by casting off her meek nature, reclaiming her intuition and strength, and coming back with the skeleton fire. What are your suggestions for practical application? What is the best way to work with jealous, envious, verbally abusive women? Hypocritical women? How do we reach out to women that are out of touch with their inner feminine and are commandeered by the patriarchy and align with patriarchal values? In a nutshell, women that are "anti-feminist" and don't value intuition, feminine connection, and sisterhood (no matter what they identify as)? Do you think this is making reclaiming the inner feminine more difficult?

A: Dear Alisa; in my family there are many tales in which there is a jealous antagonist. Folklore is filled with them as are mythos and classical works [King Lear, McBeth, La Taviata, Carmen, just to name a few oldest works]. I would like readers to recall that we can learn much by laying aspects of our lives alongside the storyline/ leitmotifs and asking, where is this in my life, subjectively [within] and objectively [outside ourselves]. 
 
Often one will find correspondence subjectively and objectively. The subjective sense of jealousy/envy we can repair in ourselves as we see fit using not ego, but spirit and soul’s eyes to see what is best value for the wholeness of true self. The outer world may be changed also by our display of having mastered what in curanderismo we call invidia, which means a sickness of 'a twisted heart.’ Meaning our heart of understanding can often assert itself over the ego who keeps a scorecard. 
 
The heart of understanding has a larger view, what I call ‘the aerial view’, meaning seeing from all sides and from above, knowing another person has a troth with Greater [or ‘lesser values’] in ways we may never comprehend, and that sometimes ‘love and limits’ is the best we can do to preserve ourselves with some of the harmful, limiting, aspects/cultural norms/persons outside ourselves. [As you likely see in my works and in my life’s works, there can also be a time to fling oneself forward in wise plan, in full battle dress with all flags burning…Knowing the difference between love and limits and full metal jacket, is the ultimate wild consciousness]
 
Most often people’s hearts and minds are filled with love, some dammed up, and often that dam is broken open by loving ways from others. I think it is useful to remember that everyone is suffering about something, and to let each soul know, as you are called, that you want peace and health and happiness for them regarding their concerns. It can be giving a tiny gift. A little card hand written, a hand on the arm, soft eyes. A smile. We never know how we might influence others to good and better. 
 
And while saying that, too, in full awareness that some hearts twisted will not at our care, be untwisted, for any number of reasons. And to strive to plant good seed: go toward those who may be able with your ministrations over time, to soften and speak to you about their travails. For what twists the heart often and seeks to limit others, is trauma and travail. Some of us decide never to become cruel because we were treated cruelly. But some few take bitterness as their shield against further hurt. We hope to show ways to be better, not bitter. But also, there is an element of destiny in how we all react to pain/exclusion/hammering. 
 
The wild balance is in assessing each event, condition where in anyone of any gender is abusive from a base of envy and woundedness. We have to take into account our resources of patience, time, wisdom, and either go near the wounded a little, or only from time to time, or not at all for now. These assessments can change from day to day; first is to preserve one’s own spirit and not become tangled as Match Girl does in lighting matches to dream on a fantasy of ‘what could be’ 'if only'…['if only' being a wonderful phrase that tells us our hopes and dreams about many things, but also can cause us to persevere on fantasies that are not able to be made into reality, and must be left to rest until perhaps someday, somehow, there is more evidence that a transformation hoped for can take place. 
 
I could write a library about the twisted heart, for so many wounded, carry one sometimes, and it is like cutting off their heart’s circulation in a way that is terrible for them and often deleterious for others. Please allow me to just say this then before this does turn into the equivalent of a long epistle. At the end of the Vasalisa story, she is given a skull that emits fire. With this fire she can see in the dark, every and anything. This is the insightful and instinctual intuitive nature that has been restored to her as before she was a dummling believing in good where there was none, bowing to cruelty out of a sense of duty. 
 
But as she goes toward the forest toward her home, the skull grows so heavy, she thinks to throw it away. In other words, what we see when we are fully in the wild nature, can sometimes be hard to bear… such as deep wounds in some that are not yet ready to be healed and yet the person spews and spews because of the wound. That is so very hard to see, so very hard to bear…for most of us came as healers to this earth, and it is so heart aching to see wounds we cannot touch. For now. 
 
Compassion for those who still live unlit, is a requirement of all who hope to heal our world. And also strong boundaries and resistance against what seeks to harm our worlds. Knowing the difference again, differentiation, is the critical aspect the wild is expert in.
 
The balance of compassion in action and boundaries well built, is carried in each soul’s mind and heart, spirit and body, and when carrying the fiery skull of Vasalisa via the mother of all mothers, the Baba Yaga creators, we can see behind, into, underneath and beyond…the conditions each person is in…and in some cases, give the heart of compassion wrapped in a soft blanket, and in other cases, as in the Vasalisa story, burn in ourselves what does not have a heart of compassion, to ash, to a mere cinder, to be returned to the earth, to fall down into humus and start over again. 
 
The great Feminine to my knowing is a dynamic force in the universe and seeks to inhabit, as does Eros, a place in every heart. It is important to remember that much space is taken up in a heart when the heart is filled with unhealed wound. Then there is not domicile for the Feminine. But as the heart is helped and healed—not to trust others—but to trust oneself—so too, often, bit by bit, the heart can fill with the values and presence of the Wild Mother. 
 

Q (from Jacinta):  How did you get the idea or inspiration for the phrase "Dogs are the magicians of the universe"? It makes me think of all of the different interpretations people could make of it. 

A: Dear Jacinta: Farm dogs, rural dogs, but also most city dogs too, often melt the hearts even of the most closed persons. I believe canine and their magical ways come from being fierce protectors, absolute forgivers of others' trespasses, joyful greeters no matter the weathers surrounding. Dogs and wolves, as you know are family. I know Wild Woman at her best also shares in the beatific traits of the canine. 

Q (from Ross): Does she think the interconnected world we have now is better environment for expression of the wild women, freedom of ideas through the internet, or does the artificial detached nature of the technology impede the wild woman.

A: Dear Ross: I would say only this, one could Ross, write an encyclopaedia on the brain science, psychology, sociology of any new/disruptive technology such as the immense digital world. I train hundreds of mid-career professionals and helper/healer students from across the world every year, in my works. 
 
I emphasise ‘face to face’ works/exchanges always. For we are sensory creatures of at least 5 and some note, more senses that that, and we are in some ways like cameras and in other ways like mine sweepers as helper/healers, taking into sensory account the temperatures and colorations of the body in face to face engagements, the words not spoken by looking into the eyes, the embrace of hands to hands that convey warmth, healing, comfort of a kind that is immediate to body and heart, mind, soul and spirit…there is the very fragrance of persons cared for and loved, including changes in scent that occur under duress or in thoughtful contemplation. 
 
I grew up without television till I was a teenager, and with an 8-party line phone. We conveyed to each other in ‘the old ways’…in the presence and often shelter of one another. Often over a tea and a pastry, yes. Lol. I find the internet magical for many things, especially research into various that once we scholars/writers had to find means to travel to actual library, apply to see the rare collections. Now many are online and it is a feast, it is true. 
 
Facts on paper or in 1s and 0s, seems alright. And people expressing ideas online seems fine too. Much of our activist work would have taken days by snail mail and now takes often, nearly moments; so that is a boon too. And I hope to keep inoculating our readers with old school and ethnic ideas that have held for thousands of years: the hearts gathering face-to-face, beholding each other in full sensory consciousness. Tactile, sensory are the pillars of memories.


Q (from Emma):  What is your opinion on "the wild woman" for people who are transgender, agender, fluid-gender, or male - can they still find or be a "wild woman" (obviously with a different term needed) even if they do not identify as woman, or if they do identify as woman but are not biological females? 

A: Wild woman archetype is within the psychic reach of all persons Emma, just as is the archetype of Creation, or the Self. My sense of transgender, as you say, agender, fluid-gender souls, is that each is a creation, made from divine and mundane ingredients available to us all. I don’t find a ‘one size fits all’ in the beautiful creation of self.
 
I find as in nature, utter stunning variation and variegation. As each soul sees fit, in ways that are useful, helpful, strengthening, heart filled, caring, merciful, fierce and kind, and more. Our good instincts are basic I think to all, as are the talents/charisms of insights — and the way we put those together with our life experiences is a customised endeavour. 
 
Who is to say what is the final edition of anyone? I say with levity, now in my seventies, I am still waiting to see how/if I 'turn out.' Too narrow a carapace does not allow the being to grow beyond the walls the over culture seems intent to squash souls into inordinately small shapes when in fact the soul is wild and oceanic. There is not, as far as I know, and I have over my lifetime consulted with myriad crones, hobbits, faeries, gnomes and leprechauns, any final saying so about what is a woman, what is a man, what is an androgyny, what is whatever our newest words are to try to speak about the sacredness of each life. It is an ongoing work, and you are its creatrix.
 
We’ve plans in place to grant rights/licenses to collaborate with artists, film-makers, screenplay writers, illustrators, dancers, musicians we already know, and others to bring aspects of Women Who Run with The Wolves to new mediums. To portray, without cutting parts and pieces from the book, the many ways wild woman shows up. Surely there will be portrayals of those who are in process of creating themselves in time honoured ways --and also in ways seldom before seen and those who are resurrecting ways of creating their lives not seen since ancient times. The wild does not discriminate by cultural ‘norms.’ That’s why we call it WILD. And that’s a promise to strive to include all. I only ask for strength and life long enough to bring it. Sincerely, thank you.
 

Q (from Katrina): I know that there are a lot of women out there who are not feminists but fit into the "wild woman" archetype. I also read a New York Times article from 1993 where you were interviewed, and it says that you "cringed at the label of feminist." Is that still true 24 years later, especially in the world we live in today? What is it about the label "feminist" that makes strong women want to turn away from it?
 
A: Dear Katrina: The dear man who wrote the NYT article, as many an article about authors in the day, contained personal impressions held by the journalist. Dirk was one of two talented male journalists who interviewed me about Women Who Run with The Wolves 20-some years ago. The other male journalist was a gifted sports writer from another major newspaper. Both were delightful because they were ‘wildly’ interested in life and its twists and turns, and my works were far away from their usual beat. 
 
“...cringed at the label of feminist” are not my words, but are the journalist’s words apparently about his impression, though I’d respectfully not agree. I remember the conversation well about many topics [mainly because I was so knocked out that any journalist would want to speak with me about my life’s work after so many decades of working in silence], and when asked about feminism [huge amounts of the conversation did not make it into the article], I’d said that for the refugee/immigrant/deportee/ethnically cleansed surviving communities of my family and environs, that often what began over a hundred plus years ago with women trying so hard to make better lives for families and to enter into full rights in many ways…
 
That where we fastened our faith and determination was that we understood and supported that women ought ever hold voting rights, that women of any race were equal to all others, that taverns and saloons ought not be built practically atop schoolhouses in order to snag the young into things deleterious to their health, that substances sold to the unwitting family members that made them sick unto death including sprays and crop dusting of our food farms and fields should have transparency [telling the people what was actually in the poison and how it would affect their health and their food] and be regulated to spare the people and the plants, that mining and factory work and farm work ought be paid adequately and health conditions for all workers held as sacred…for men and for women. 
 
That was our way of being women of conscience; to care for all within reach in spirit and body. Much later, a wave of feminism that began on the east coast, about 1200 miles away from where we lived, did not reach our neck of the woods until most of us backwoods raised up, rural and semi-rural folk were already mothers trying to work, raise families and stay as reasonably well as possible, helping our parents, and cooking, cleaning and growing and preserving food and did I mention, sleeping? Yes, lol, that was in there somewhere too. 
 
If pressed to define bedeck of my soul, it would be love for humanity, although in our tradition, we tend only to call ourselves ‘the people’, and just ‘a person’ who hopefully strives to do good in the world. As an ‘old believer’ catolico, we were from childhood onward, steeped in social justice; meaning in whatever ways we are called and can to spiritually and in reality, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the sick, watch over the widows and orphans, comfort the grieving, heal the wounded. I’m not sure if there is a word label for striving to do those things, but those facets of our lives are what I hope through my works, can in some way touch, to leave behind a little better than when found, to be mended in a way that will hold. 


Q: (from MeerderWörter) Do you think that there are societies where the Wild Woman is cherished and nourished, and if so, where?

A: Dear MeerderWörter, I think in your heart, in the sacred wild heart of each person who vows to live out one’s charisms, one’s talents for themselves and for others. I call the people who follow my work, my "Tribe of the Sacred Heart: Scar Clan." The members are known to one another sometimes, but most times not. But if we are quiet and just feel our humanity with one another, we all can sense one another across the world, whether in Burundi, in Cairo, in Kinshala, in Johannesburg, in London, in Dublin, in Caracas, in the Arctic circle. We know one another’s hearts and we would recognise one another on sight. 
 
It is true there are some tribal groups where in women are cut and clamped down on in inhumane ways. There are also tribal groups wherein women have sway: and often within ancient cultural norms. Because of the diaspora of groups across the world, the breaking up of village life by wars  and in peacetime by a certain kind of gentrification, I think it is up to us dear MeerderWörter, to carry the wild heart wherever we go, and like kokopelli, the dancing enspiriter of human beings, ‘impregnate’ any who are willing with the beautiful, balanced wild nature that unleashed beauty and creativity and meaning into this world by the bucketful’s… for whomever has the eyes to see, the ears to hear...


Q: (from Colleen)  My question is what would Clarissa suggest about the wild woman in society today. With the political climate recently is the wild woman a necessity or an option?

A: Dear Colleen: Necessity. Ever. No matter the clime. Ever. Ever and ever. Wild woman is like a lush forest that provides shelter, a place for the young to grow to maturity, a desert in which all life is rich underground, an ocean filled with new life and life waning and life coming back again, a meadowland of wildlife and wildflowers, a guardian consciousness that rises up to care for and if need be, fight for. Ally with the lovingly fierce, the reasoned stalwarts. You already know what I say: This is our time: do not lose heart; we were made for these times. Go forward. Do not tarry.

Hello everyone,

Please join me in thanking Dr. Estés for her thoughtful and considered answers to all of our questions!

Emma x


Q: What was your intention when writing this book?

A: As V.S. Naipaul said, “…to understand my work, one has to understand my life…” My work dear readers comes from my being mestizo Mexicana [Native American /Spanish/ Mexica] born to farmer/fisher people, and as an older child adopted into a farmer family of deportees, refugees and immigrants who were from the Magyar and Upper Danube River tribal groups. 
 
Their wounds from war and slave labour camp traumas, their braveries, their veering hard into trying to mediate their hard struggles to live a new life in a nation where in they knew not the language nor the culture, were my first witness into the ongoing worlds of helping and healing the souls of those devastated by inhumanity to humankind. 
 
My families are the rootstock of my writing and my spoken word works. Many in my family could not read nor write, I grew up in a nearly pure oral tradition of stories handed down, not from books, but in original voice from the people who lived them through travail and triumphs, through hard won insights, through errors and through striving to re-aright themselves by striving to follow the soul rather than ego alone.  
 
My families, myself, are far from perfect, for amongst my beloved elders who were both brutal and beatific in many ways, there have been as Levinas the great philosopher and survivor of the holocaust writes, strong endeavours to ‘escape from existence’, meaning their issues with alcohol, abandonment, lack of health, and more. Living with and through all of these layers of cultures within cultures, is part of my knowing mercy and love continue to be great healers for many, most and much. 
 
I began to write Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype in 1970 when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. I had heard for years since childhood, a call, both inside and out, to try to help those in the world who were hurt, lost, wandering about, trapped, unable to bring full unleashing of self, soul, heart, mind, spirit and body to the world…because of injuries, or being told they were meant only for X, and not for Y and Z, A, B and all points of talents in between. 
 

Q: If a young woman has a lack of confidence and is fighting against a feeling of not belonging, how could she use the lessons in Women Who Run with The Wolves to break out of this cycle?

A: There is a chapter I wrote into this work called ‘Belonging as Blessing’. In particular, the story of the Ugly Duckling, as told in my family of elders [my parents I grew up with for the majority of my life were 20 years older than the parents of my peers; I grew up in a family of old people war survivors who knew many things despite their own griefs, challenges that had come to them through seeing that none of their children, mates, many of their village, more than half their sisters and brothers did not survive the war as an ‘immigrant’ story, a story of a little innocent immigrant who accidentally was thrown into the wrong ‘nest’ and nearly pecked to death. 
 
The ‘ugly’ duckling was told he was a duck. But was really a beautiful swan. As are all souls; beautiful in their own rights. Eccentricities are often the first sign of giftedness. And, one cannot live in a village of ducks who cannot recognise a swan, meaning the over culture as I call it [society] attempts to steal the talents out of a woman, leaving a mere duck shell in more ways than one. Belonging to like kind is a seeking we all have undertaken. 
 
And once there with even one other like-kind in reciprocal caring, then we can build bridges to others who are from other layers of talent different than our own. Belonging is not granted by the ‘belongers’…it is sought out by the one properly and justly finding one’s own kind. That is often a journey, a worthy one. 


Q: Were there any other animals that came close to the wolves in the significance of this piece of work?

A: I cannot exactly say I chose the leitmotif of wolves, rather that the archetypal wind of wolves of our world…chose me. I grew up in the backwoods, north country, and as a child, with family, travelled to fish for winter food, far, far up north where there be wolves in the woods still at that time. They took my heart. 
 
Though I also know bear and butterfly, forests and foxes, and other ensouled creatures closely, for this work, the beauty of, the cohesiveness of intention of wolves and their young, and yet the hounding of and need for protection of wolves were so like the experiences of the feminine animating force in the psyche, the challenges and struggles of the feminine in the over culture, that it was clear to my writing hand and my deepest heart that this iconic creature was in my childhood blood, and central to my work. 
 

Q: Do you feel that you are in tune with your wildest nature, or is it something that you need to work on regularly? 

A: When I began writing Women Who Run with The Wolves, I was a young mother in love with my baby and with all the vulnerable and variegations of beauteous nature and all the bright possibilities of the world. Now, I am an old woman in my seventies, and just as certain that the wild nature is birth right, bright and innate in us all, not separate from nature, but rather interdependent with nature, and that more so—throughout life for the wild to thrive in a cohesive and life-giving manner, it takes us pushing back, resisting utterly and often the ‘over culture’ --the daft society’s strange constant desire to be ‘cutting down’ women’s full territory, still wanting her to be an ornament rather than an awesome being she was born as/into/to become. 
 
My ‘pushing back’ against the indecent and inhumane shackles that some tried to place over the innocent, began as a teenager, and grows only stronger and more lovingly fierce the older I become. We are in a time now when all hands of the good souls must be on deck in fullest sight and voice possible: THAT, is truly the wildest of the wild nature; protecting and defending and raising up and building bridges to that which cannot be allowed to perish from this earth. 
 
And…I know many of my spirit daughters and spirit sons across the world are carrying the consciousness, are doing just that: what is within one’s reach: starting anywhere. Knowing all and anything good and decent will help. And I am proud of you all, for I can see with the advent of internet and digital everything never before conceived of, I can see you daily through one venue or another, especially my Facebook page but also other forums, that you all indeed are awake, alert and active! You are a blessing on this earth for certain dear brave souls. 
 

Q; Talking about fairy tales, you rightly say that many of them have gruesome parts (chopping off toes / feet for example) to shock the reader and make them think. However, in modern adaptations there is less danger and gruesomeness. Do you think something has been lost in changing these old stories to be more palatable? 

A: I would suggest that there are over culture ‘cutting' of stories that ‘clean them up’ for various reasons of personal sensibility/sensitivity for instance, but remember the Grimm Brothers tales are cleaned up too, “Christianised” according to the 19th century brothers' personal beliefs. Perhaps most striking is the Grimm’s did not attribute the stories to their tellers, nor follow the respectful genealogy of stories followed by the ethnic groups of farmers/fisher people/tradespeople’s stories which are ever tied to real life, as in my ethnic traditions too. 
 
Story and real life are inseparable. One informs the other. Thereby I brought my families original stories into my work with full earthy dirt still on the roots and this is why they stand out as very different often from the more ‘mannered’ stories one might find elsewhere. The old ethnic tales of our family contain what the Grimm’s left out, e.g. the scatological, the praising and supplication of the old gods, the irreverence for man-made institutions, the sexually blatant, the wild humour, and most especially, the seeking by the soul and spirit for true home in ways that are real, down to earth, not a cake frosting fantasy. The ‘real road' way, I hope is ever elucidated in my works, ever strived toward in my own life. Your life too.


Q: Are there any reactions to Women Who Run with Wolves that particularly surprised you?

A: Here in 2017, it has been 25 years since Women Who Run with The Wolves was first published. It took 20 years to write Women Who Run with The Wolves, and 42 rejections by major publishers over that twenty years before it was able to be seen as print on paper for the dear readers. 

In one sense, now by my sights from my advancing age, I think sometimes I can understand myself as the young woman who began this helping/healing work as carrying in her soul something I'd call ‘nearly pathological optimism’. I can see now how perhaps not despite, but perhaps ‘because’ she felt cut to ribbons at many a rejection, and yet, something of her fire would not die, refused to be extinguished. 

I can see myself through the smoke of memory, as we say in my ethnic tradition by ‘the smoking mirror of Tezcatlipoca,’ as a young woman, as a middle-aged woman, somehow, she kept going no matter how many doors were slammed shut. No matter who hurled words that were ‘spirit killing’ -no matter who, how, what, where, when, and why. 

Like a wolf carted off far from its home territory and relegated to some barren flatland by those who think they ought ‘manage’ wildlife, this wolf woman came sniffing for the scent of home, trotting amongst the near invisible trails by night, resting in whatever shelter one could find, ducking away from and full fighting off predators, and day by day, night by night, coming back time and again, to true home…and launching from there, time after time, time after time, like a scarred but strong wolf with clear intention…until one day… 

And one of the surprises has been, one of the things most dear to my heart of hearts, is that many of each generation since this work came to light, has handed it to their daughters and granddaughters, their sons and grandsons, fathers giving to daughters, grandfathers giving to grandsons, abbas and abueitas and omahs bringing this work as a gift to their young, so that the lifeline to the wild can be repaired, taken back, strengthened in the ways most critical to women who are to me, the preservers and leaders of ‘the world that lasts, the world that matters’ along with their confreres/brothers…

I love heart-to-heart women’s courage to be in the balanced wild, to live not ‘as if’ their lives matter, but ‘because they matter so.’ Also, I would say with as much love, I am also heartened by men who understand the great feminine force is with them also, that they too are the guardians of the values of the wild great mother, those stalwarts, ‘the men who run with women who run with the wolves.’

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

A myth this month, by Naomi Wolf.

Hope you enjoy,
E xx

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

Our next book – Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale – is a gripping read, but it won’t make you feel comfortable. It is set in a dystopian future where a society (which was once clearly the USA) is ruled by a fundamentalist religion that controls women’s bodies. Because fertility rates are low, certain women – who have proved they are fertile – are given to the Commanders of the ‘Republic of Gilead’ as ‘handmaids’ in order to bear children for them when their wives cannot. The novel purports to be the first-person account of a handmaid, Ofred, who describes her life under this totalitarian regime. Flashbacks to her past, when she took it for completely for granted that she could be a working mother and have an equal relationship with her husband, show how easy it was for women’s rights to be revoked once a period of social chaos arose. As tension builds, the reader desperately hopes that the underground resistance will come to Ofred’s aid and rescue her.

Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale over thirty years ago now, but it is a book that has never stopped fascinating readers because it articulates so vividly what it feels like for a woman to lose power over her own body. Like George Orwell's 1984 (a novel that Atwood was inspired by) its title alone summons up a whole set of ideas, even for those who haven't read it. As Atwood has said in an interview: 'It has become a sort of tag for those writing about shifts towards policies aimed at controlling women, and especially women's bodies and reproductive functions: "Like something out of The Handmaid's Tale".'

Well, here's our chance to read beyond the ‘tag’, and share our thoughts about how we think its dystopian vision relates to the world of 2017. Atwood has called it ‘speculative fiction’, but also says that all the practises described in the novel are ‘drawn from the historical record’ – i.e. are things that have actually taken place in the past. Could any of Atwood’s speculations take place again, or are some of them taking place already? Are the women in the book powerless in their oppression or could they be doing more to fight it? I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

Emma x

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

When WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES was first published in 1993, it created a furore about the idea of the Wild Woman archetype and how women had lost our connection to our natural, instinctual selves. Jungian psychoanalyst, poet, and keeper of old stories Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book went to sell over 2 million copies, but today her fascinating book is rarely discussed. Estes’ ideas are both ancient and completely new. She points to storytelling, our ancient narratives, as a way for women to reconnect to the Wild Woman all women have within themselves, but have lost.

As a young girl growing up in northern Michigan, Estes felt most at home in the woods where she often heard wolves howling. Instead of scaring her, the animals’ cries comforted her in a way she was later able to express in this book. Wolves and women share many qualities: playfulness, strength, curiosity, bravery, they are adaptive, and each care deeply for their young. But both wolves and women have suffered a similar fate of being hounded, harassed, exhausted, marginalized, accused of being devious and of little value. How does one reconnect with our deepest, most true selves when today’s world demands us to conform to ridiculous expectations? Estes retells ancient myths and fairy tales from around the world and in doing so shines a light on a path which leads us back to our natural state --- and help us restore the power we carry within us.

Emma x

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

This book isn't strictly just a book - it's a play that became a political movement that became a world-wide phenomenon. Just say the title The Vagina Monologues and, even now, twenty years after Eve Ensler first performed her ground-breaking show, the words feel radical. I'm very excited about spending the months of January and February reading and discussing a book/play that has literally changed lives.

The first person's life it changed was the feminist playwright Eve Ensler's. She says she didn't so much 'write' her play as act as a conduit for other women's stories. She had become fascinated by how the word 'vagina' was never spoken, and how the vagina itself was kept in the dark as if it was something shameful to discuss. So she started interviewing women about their vaginas - getting them to open up to her. Once women started talking, the stories came thick and fast, and Eve put them together into a series of monologues to be performed on stage.

When the play was first performed in 1996, it was a small, off Broadway production. But soon it began to make huge and controversial waves. It was the time of the Bosnian war and terrible stories were emerging of the systematic rape of Bosnian women. One of the monologues was inspired by these stories, and out of those first performances of The Vagina Monologues grew the V-Day movement to stop violence against women. The first V-Day was on Valentine's Day 1998 when a group of well-known actresses got together to perform Eve's monologues. Since then the V-Day movement has become international, with The Vagina Monologues being performed in theatres and on college campuses worldwide. Even today there are people trying to ban those performances.

I'm so interested to see which monologues we all like best, and which ones still shock us. Has the world moved on in twenty years, or are there still aspects of women's sexuality we can't talk about, through our own fears or because others try to stop us? Do we think art can change the world?

Emma x

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

November and December’s book will be Mom & Me & Mom, Maya Angelou’s final work, published a year before her death, in 2013, when she was 85 years old. It was the first book to focus on her mother, Vivian Baxter, who abandoned Angelou when she was a child and it portrays their complicated relationship. The story is about the special connection between mother and child; both women found a way to move on and form a profound and enduring bond of love and support.

Many of you may be familiar with Angelou’s 1969 classic, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, but that was just the first of seven works of autobiography. And, despite the length of time between their publications, some have referred to Mom & Me & Mom as a spiritual sequel to this first book. Angelou revisits episodes and people in her life mentioned in her previous works in a different context and all focused around her relationship with her mother.

Vivian Baxter cuts a fiercely unapologetic figure, imperfect but admirable, and we discover not just how she had a hand in Angelou’s evolution as a black woman but also in her feminist perspective, her independence and self-awareness, all of which contributed to her unique way of looking at the world and the way she expressed herself on the page. As a result, this is perhaps the greatest window into what shaped Angelou as a writer and poet and a fitting end to a lifetime of amazing works.

This book is one I have read before and is one of my favourites - I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Emma x

Hello everyone,

The publisher of Half The Sky has kindly agreed to provide a free copy of the book to the first fifty people who reply to this post! I’d love for these free copies to go to people who are having trouble affording the books every other month, so please only post if this applies to you. The mods will be in touch with you privately to get hold of postal addresses.

Love,
Emma

Dear Our Shared Shelf,

Great news! Carrie Brownstein has kindly agreed to come into our club and answer your questions about Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl directly. Please post your best questions for her right here and keep an eye out for her responses in due course...

Love,
Emma