I’m focusing on women’s writing this month. Why? Because the best pieces I’ve gotten lately have been from women. Every year, I publish 55 creative nonfiction writers, five a month for eleven months. (Each August we do a retrospective issue.) There have been other months when the best writing came from women, as well as a few months when the best writing came from men, and once or twice I’ve done an all-male issue without remarking on it. I have no explanation for these monthly disparities, and probably they mean nothing more than the spilling out of a few M&Ms that results in mostly red ones.
Nor do I wish to get into contentious speculations as to what constitutes “women’s writing” or “men’s writing,” as I believe that one of the humanizing effects of literature is that we are permitted to explore, both as writers and as readers, the experiences of people who are different from ourselves. Still, some of the themes that emerge from this month’s selections might be said to be of special concern to women, if not exclusively so.
I’m presenting two pieces by Shauna Hambrick Jones: “On Kissing,” which offers a woman’s perspective on forbidden desire; and “Third of the Month, September 1985,” which presents the complex feelings of a daughter whose mother is supporting the family on food stamps. The brevity of both pieces increases our wonder at their impact.
In “Julia’s Story,” by Lily Stejskal, we have the story of a little girl’s expectations and experiences surrounding the adoption of her baby sister. It is a straightforward story that finds its depth in the interplay between a child’s loving imagination and the loving reality of a profoundly personal family experience.
I don’t really know precisely how to define “women’s writing.” However we define it, these five pieces demonstrate that its concerns are far-ranging, affecting, and universal.