Harvest | 21.3

1998

Digital only; out of stock in print.

It has been sixty years since Virginia Woolf wrote “A Room of One’s Own,” an essay addressing the dearth of women writers throughout time. “…It is necessary to have five hundred [pounds] a year and a room with a lock on it,” she noted in 1928, “if you are to write fiction or poetry.”

While our “room” is constructed of paper and ink, it has become that place for many women. It has also been a place that has seen the budding of many careers. So, it’s especially exciting to be able to include in this issue a harvest of creative energy from both the seasoned and the newly emerged talent. Some of the new talent came to Room from a call for submissions from young talent. This includes Anna Humphrey (who was still in high school when she submitted her poem) and short story writers Carrie MacDonald, Kate Harding and Andrea Blundell. Also in their early twenties are Lisa Goldberg, Ruba Nadda and artist Kali Birdsall.

Published in academic journals, but new to the literary scene is Theresa O’Donovan. Karen Horeth, a teacher who writes in her off-hours, has been previously published, but calls herself a “new writer.”

In contrast, while some of the younger women were speaking—perhaps writing—their first words, poet Kathryn Gordon was making her first submission to Room twenty years ago! Also among those able to count more publishing credits than we could note here are Cathy Stanton, Kim Silveira Wolterbeek, Frances Greenslade, Susan Terris and Melissa Hardy.