 January 2008 |
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Writing Women Writers There have been a number of things that have delayed the beefing up of this website in the last year, but mostly, as that John Lennon song says "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans". Most of what I could write here to explain/excuse the negligence on my own part would be just that: excuses. I have had a lot on my plate this last year, and I don't particularly want to put them here because it's just too personal. I believe that the personal IS political, but sometimes, sharing that just negates something about the privacy of life's worst and best moments. But. This is about writing women writers. I no longer get the bizarre emails I used to get with people saying rude things (this is not an invitation to more of them, thanks). I guess it's because I make it a lot harder to find the email address nowadays, and you have to weed through a FAQ, and it just makes the random snarky or bizarre offensive comment seem silly. I've been doing this website for very close to ten years, and I have an awful lot to say about what this site does for me, for women, for the Internet in general. In fact, this summer is to be our 10 year anniversary. I want to do something big-- but just what I do not know. I would like to turn various aspects of this website into a published, for real, in print book. Not because I don't seriously value the online electronic media format of this zine but to make it something that one can hold in one's hands, see in print, say "I did that." That's my big plan for the summer when I'm not teaching. We'll see if that happens. I've begun to feel a bit like the mom who always says "We'll see" to the kids who beg to go...wherever. This poor little zine is always looking for more attention lately, and I will find the time for it, soon. I know that what is no longer new, and sometimes a chore, to me, is still new to a lot of people, and still very important. To see your work for the first time, validated by strangers as good, that is something thrilling. This last semester a student, a bright one, who I quite liked, came to my office to show me some poetry. Shaking, he showed me a long manuscript, and I liked it, really. I remembered doing the same thing with a poetry professor of my own. And it was important to me to have a balanced reaction, that was not empty praise and honest but still encouraging. I think, I hope, that my responses were not painful to the student, but poets are sensitive. I include myself there, for sure-- the rejection letters from my one brief foray into circulating my work after my BA kept me from sharing my poetry for a long time. I think of those people who with excitement share their work with us, and I want to keep doing it. I will keep doing it as best as I can. I want to keep providing a space for women writers to see their books reviewed, their poetry & fiction published, their scholarly ideas shared. This will keep coming, and soon, I hope to beef up the staff here and get a move on it, already. "We'll see" if I can keep this promise,this time. :) Kim Wells
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