My Guest Blog Post on HER KIND

Earlier this week, a guest blog post of mine appeared at HER KIND, the blog of the organization VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.  This is my very first guest blog post, so I am excited to share this news with you.  

Wondering what VIDA and HER KIND are about?  From HK: “As the blog of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, HER KIND serves as a forum to create lively conversation about issues that are often dismissed or overlooked by the mainstream media. We wish to honor the experiences of women writers and for HER KIND to act as an agent for positive social change, encouraging women to define their own terms regarding the importance and value of women’s voices.”

As a writer myself, I see the need to encourage society to value women’s writing and the variety of  women’s experiences, so when I received the call for submissions in my inbox last March, I just had to jump on board.  I wrote my post in response to the prompt “Freedom.”  At the time, I was thinking about how difficult it can be for women, particularly mothers of young children, to find time to write (I was feeling it intensely).  This elusive time is affected not just by the demands of family, but also by the social pressures placed on women, especially women who are mothers.  

By the way, this was before the recent media frenzy over women’s achievement that you may have heard or read about regarding women’s ability “to have it all.”  In any case, my article does not directly contribute to that conversation, although it may be peripherally relevant from a different perspective.  I willingly chose motherhood as my full time occupation, supplementing that with a paid part-time teaching job.  In addition, I hoped that this arrangement would provide me with time for my passion: writing poetry.  While that may be my version of having it all, most other women have their own ideas that are probably as varied as the women themselves.  The mainstream media conversation does not even begin to address the complexity of the “having it all” discussion, in my opinion.

On that note, here is a teaser from the published post: “I am not what you expect from a feminist writer.  For the past eight years, I have devoted most of my time to mothering rather than the working and writing life I built as a single person.  I do teach Women’s Studies, but part-time.  I have spent very little time writing, even though writing is one of the most fulfilling ways to spend my personal time…”

I hope you will go read the full article, and if you are so inclined, join the discussion by leaving a comment below or at HER KIND.

L.L. at Seedlings in Stone hosts the weekly On, In, and Around Monday Link up, “an invitation to write from where you are… [with] a sense of place.”  How about an abstract place…