An Observation from Alice Hoffman's Youth

.

I spent the weekend teaching courses on fantasy and science fiction at the Rutgers University Writing Conference. The other teachers -- or "presenters" as we were called -- were a remarkably pleasant batch. So I had a good time.

Alice Hoffman gave a keynote talk in which she said that when she was a girl it never occurred to her that she might become a writer. Because at that time, it was the commonly held belief that literature concerned itself with war and other masculine pursuits. Also, "Growing up," she said, "the only women I read were either British or dead." Encountering Grace Paley later convinced her that women's experiences could also be the stuff of literature.

I  remember the time of which she spoke and can attest that she does not exaggerate the case. And now...? Well, thanks to Ms Hoffman and many, many other women writers, it would take a pretty inattentive little girl not to realize that it can be done. That literature can be written by a woman. And that that woman might someday be her.

And, as R. A. Lafferty once remarked, that's all I have to say. I just thought I should point out that in the midst of what can some days looks like unrelieved gloom, there are patches of light, signs of progress, reasons to hope.


Above: I swiped Alice Hoffman'a pub photo, figuring that in this case she wouldn't mind. You can find her blog at http://alicehoffman.com/blog/.

*