Joanne Valin holds a Ph.D. in American literature. She teaches literature and composition, and her poetry has been published in the Canadian anthology The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against the War.



Writing is a political act. You've heard this before. It is not a new idea, but it is one that bears repeating here and now. The VIDA statistics on the literary…

Dr. Mary Ashun, who also writes under the names Asabea Ashun and Abena Apea, is Assistant Professor of Education at Redeemer University College, Ontario. She is the author of Mistress of the Game (Kente Publishing, Ghana) and The Adventures of Kobby Badu-Smith (Kente Publishing, Ghana, and her new book This African Child is agented by The Bukowski Agency, Toronto. She is the creator of (and the host for) the literary show Book ‘Em TV on Rogers…

“I’ve never told anyone this before,” the email said. It was one of several that landed on my desk at the Committee to Protect Journalists after the news broke that CBS correspondent…

A House for Ms. Biswas by Tina Biswas

Tina Biswas was born in England to Bengali parents in 1978. She read Politics, Philosophy & Economics at New College, Oxford. Her first novel, Dancing With The Two Headed Tigress, is a comedy of manners, set in England, Ireland, and India. Her second, The Red Road, deals with the Naxalite Uprisings in the…

Try to contain your excruciating, nearly mind-numbing boredom at this newsflash: there has been another dumbass-dude comment about all women writers, living or dead!  The latest offender?  Nobel Prize Winning writer V.S. Naipaul.  In an interview at the Royal Geographic Society,…

French Journalists’ Silence on IMF's Strauss-Kahn Reminds Sarah Glazer of Her Own Complicity

It’s an odd feeling to spend a month writing an article about the something as dry as the European currency union only to have it sensationalized the day of publication by an international sex scandal.

 “But what does it mean for Greece?” my editors queried, as the…

Apparently, I was ahead of my time when it comes to reinvention.

We live in a world where everything is in flux -- jobs, families, life stages.  People have joked for years that 50 is the new 30, but in these times, there's some truth to…

I know people are already sick of hearing about this anniversary. Since the cameras left last year and people have resumed their lives, it is assumed everything is back to normal, and guess what--pictures don't lie!  Or do they? See, there's a little thing in writing called "spin" and it has developed into a…

This is a disaster for which there are no words.  But process it--and help--we must.  Please use the comments on this post as a space to share links to writing, links to organizations in need of donations, and words for our fellow She Writers based in Japan.

For starters, please check out…

How did a woman from the Deep South who writes stories about her grandma’s china and a woman from Texas who writes books like Messalina, Devourer of Men end up producing an anthology to benefit volunteers working on the Gulf Coast Oil Spill? And by the way we’ve never laid eyes on one another…

Last week on a trip to the west coast, I was lucky enough to meet with newly minted She Writes member (welcome her!) JENNIFER SIEBEL NEWSOM, creator of the documentary film…

From Melissa Silverstein, co-founder and producer of the upcoming Athena Film Festival:

Come to the Barnard College and the Athena Film Festival - A Celebration of Women and Leadership from February 10-13. 25 shorts, docs and features will…

Aquarie Gertrude comes up for another spin around the virtual sun of birthdays this very day today. And a great birthday it is. 2011 is promising a big comeback for Stein -- in the California of her youth, of all places. San Francisco is preparing the unusual festivities:…

Rebecca Traister, author of Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women answers five questions from…

Deborah Siegel thinks in public about the through-lines in her writing and asks, what are the through-lines in YOUR work?

I’ve been thinking a lot about gender of…

In the debut of the new She Writes column Women in Translation, Jean Casella writes about the obstacles many international women must overcome simply to write--and offers one stunning…