I've hesitated to write about successful women who are alive today because I take liberties with the way I think about and present successful women. I read many biographies of women and there are a lot of choices they make that I do not like. I am not a true biographer, I do not share all the lessons that successful women can show us, often I emphasize their strengths and struggles as I recognize them to be issues women are struggling with today.
With modern women I worry that I will horribly represent them because I find the reporting on celebrities and/or successful modern women dubious. Perhaps I am afraid of an angry phone call or email. Yet there are some women today who one cannot continue to overlook, especially if you are talking about success, in this case, the Queen of Success, Oprah.
I just watched Oprah Unauthorized (2007). Surprisingly the DVD I rented from my library looked as pristine as some of the DVDs I request on obscure women. It was a wonderful video that raised me out of my chair and left me ranting "Oprah, Oprah, Oprah." I don't normally act this way, even when I am excited but the enthusiasm of the people interviewed in this documentary and the list of her hundreds of accomplishments brought tears to my eyes. How exciting to see someone create such an extraordinary life. It makes me wonder why she is so rare.
The praise that resonated to me the most was that "Oprah is always true to herself." Several people said that she always did what she thought was right and created what was true to her. This uncompromising commitment to herself and her ideals and expectations of life is why almost everyone in the world loves her, or at least admits that she is likeable. Oprah’s lifestyle proves to us that you can truly listen to others, be there for them and make yourself successful and be true to yourself – all at the same time. My question is, are we up for the challenge?
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Englewood Author’s Novel Inspired by Colorado Castle Owner
A Scottish castle brimming with European antiques is not what you would expect to see in Northern Douglas County. Nor would you expect to run into over 3,000 acres of pristine undeveloped land just east of Castle Pines Village. Even odder, this castle and the land was owned and governed by a Southern belle who raised cattle.
Colorado's beauty and sunny days attract all sorts of people with interesting pasts and Tweet Kimble brought her life steeped in European culture to our Rocky Mountain State.
Englewood author Corinne Joy Brown was one of the last writers to interview Tweet before she died in 1999. Tweet's character was so strong and so fascinating to Corinne that Tweet served as the inspiration for her historic novel "MacGregor's Lantern." The castle Tweet owned was modeled after Scottish castles. During the research for Corinne's book, Corinne discovered that the Scots dominated in the ranching industry in Colorado and Wyoming. It may have been this influence that encouraged the castle design at Cherokee Ranch.
Maggie Dowling is the main character in MacGregor's Lantern. Her determination is reminiscent of the stories people still tell about Tweet Kimble. Maggie moved out West, accepting an engagement proposal from one of her father's clients. She expected adventure, which she certainly encountered but it wasn’t packaged the way she expected.
Many women during the late 1800’s also traveled west with their husbands or to meet up with their fiancés and many found the western frontier too difficult to bear so they returned home. Returning home was never an option in Maggie's mind. She committed to the decision and for better or worse, she was going to see that decision through. This story combines independence and determination with usual western flair.
I love reading stories about strong, determined women, so I gladly encourage you to MacGregor's Lantern by Corinne Joy Brown.
If you live in Colorado or when you plan a visit, make sure you take a tour of Cherokee Castle and Ranch. When Tweet passed away she left her house, land, antiques, and legend as a nonprofit treasure open for tours, educational programs, weddings and other parties. You can enter her estate just off Highway 85 and find yourself in a world of impressive views, Native American Indian heritage, European antiques and Colorado wildlife.
Successful Women Share Their Secrets
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Colorado's beauty and sunny days attract all sorts of people with interesting pasts and Tweet Kimble brought her life steeped in European culture to our Rocky Mountain State.
Englewood author Corinne Joy Brown was one of the last writers to interview Tweet before she died in 1999. Tweet's character was so strong and so fascinating to Corinne that Tweet served as the inspiration for her historic novel "MacGregor's Lantern." The castle Tweet owned was modeled after Scottish castles. During the research for Corinne's book, Corinne discovered that the Scots dominated in the ranching industry in Colorado and Wyoming. It may have been this influence that encouraged the castle design at Cherokee Ranch.
Maggie Dowling is the main character in MacGregor's Lantern. Her determination is reminiscent of the stories people still tell about Tweet Kimble. Maggie moved out West, accepting an engagement proposal from one of her father's clients. She expected adventure, which she certainly encountered but it wasn’t packaged the way she expected.
Many women during the late 1800’s also traveled west with their husbands or to meet up with their fiancés and many found the western frontier too difficult to bear so they returned home. Returning home was never an option in Maggie's mind. She committed to the decision and for better or worse, she was going to see that decision through. This story combines independence and determination with usual western flair.
I love reading stories about strong, determined women, so I gladly encourage you to MacGregor's Lantern by Corinne Joy Brown.
If you live in Colorado or when you plan a visit, make sure you take a tour of Cherokee Castle and Ranch. When Tweet passed away she left her house, land, antiques, and legend as a nonprofit treasure open for tours, educational programs, weddings and other parties. You can enter her estate just off Highway 85 and find yourself in a world of impressive views, Native American Indian heritage, European antiques and Colorado wildlife.
Successful Women Share Their Secrets
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Author Donates Royalties to Stop Dam Building
India has undergone many dam projects as have many other developing countries. Foreign investment, flood control, irrigation canals, and energy production are the cited reasons for dam construction but critics claim that the devastation to the human population living in the flood zones and the ecological damage, as well as statistics stating historical dam projects provide significantly less energy output as expected, encourage extreme resistance to dam construction.
In India, massive protests in the form of hunger strikes, and donations of book royalties from famous Indian writer Arundhati Roy* keep this debate in the news.
Book Review: "Power Politics", 2001, author Arundhati Roy, Indian female writer (also author of famous novel "The God of Small Things"
This book is a series of essays exploring water dam building and energy production in India, political response to September 11, 2001 in expectation of a U.S. war with Afghanistan, and free speech.
One essay from the book is called "The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin." Roy provides statistics and arguments against the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens who lived and farmed on lands where the Indian government wanted to flood in the construction of dams. Resistance against dams, the overall ecological damage being the primary grounds of argument, is a common one in the United States; however, in most cases, a dam displaces few people.
Roy opens our eyes to the plight of thousands and thousands of people living in India, most of them already poor and with little political influence who are forced to leave their homes and try to find a new way to support themselves. I am not in a position to assure you of the accuracy of her statistics and statistics can always be manipulated, but her image of the conditions of the displaced is well worth being aware of.
The Sardar Sarovar dam in India was fiercely debated. One website described one of the resettlement villages for the people who were displaced by this dam.
"The sites, severely lacking basic infrastructure such as sewage and irrigation facilities, can themselves hardly be called villages. Yet since the mid-1990s, these sites have been home to 80 families who once lived in the now-submerged village of Makhekheda. Nearly 12,000 other families live in sites that pass as villages off similar unnavigable roads across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. These families, who had their land and livelihoods submerged as a result of the 360-foot high Sardar Sarovar dam, dot the unseen landscape of the Sardar Sarovar project."**
Statistics of the people affected vacillate wildly between 50,000 to 1 million*** however, to the families involved, the gravity of their situation is barely affected by a massive number of neighbors. For these families, they are forced to promptly create a new way of earning a living and rewrite traditions that may be generations old. The hunger strikes and protests against these dam projects may reside more with people rehabilitation and perhaps less on the ecological damage or even the economic necessity. Critics also claim that many of the dam projects end up providing only a fraction of the amount of energy intended.****
Arundhati Roy
I sought out her work because an essay I was reading said that Roy believes that individuals should take responsibility for themselves and stop claiming to be a victim. Few people feel this way today as many of us are tempted to blame the government, parents, spouses, or society for our own shortcomings. "Power Politics" is her only book I’ve read so far. Further research into her work leaves me impressed at her forthrightness, clarity of purpose, and commitment to others. She has been widely criticized for her actions and has also been taken to court. In response to criticism, she said:
"I am hysterical. I'm screaming from the bloody rooftops. And he and his smug little club are going 'Shhhh... you'll wake the neighbours!' I want to wake the neighbours, that's my whole point. I want everybody to open their eyes".*****
Is there an issue you feel passionate about? Have you been contributing to the solution? Have you turned your passion into commitment?
Looking for more?
The International Day of Action Against Dams For Rivers, Water, and Life
Narmada River project – problems and solutions – evaluates Indian dam project calling for 3,000 dams on the Narmada River.
Cited sources
*Arundhati Roy donates book royalties
**”Dam-Affected Resettlement in India: A Photo Essay” by Chhandasi Pandya, April 29, 2006
***”Dam-Affected Resettlement in India: A Photo Essay” by Chhandasi Pandya, April 29, 2006
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10177
****Dams do not provide expected energy output
*****Arundhati Roy quote : SCIMITARS IN THE SUN, Frontline, Volume 18 - Issue 01, Jan. 06 - 19, 2001
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
In India, massive protests in the form of hunger strikes, and donations of book royalties from famous Indian writer Arundhati Roy* keep this debate in the news.
Book Review: "Power Politics", 2001, author Arundhati Roy, Indian female writer (also author of famous novel "The God of Small Things"
This book is a series of essays exploring water dam building and energy production in India, political response to September 11, 2001 in expectation of a U.S. war with Afghanistan, and free speech.
One essay from the book is called "The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin." Roy provides statistics and arguments against the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens who lived and farmed on lands where the Indian government wanted to flood in the construction of dams. Resistance against dams, the overall ecological damage being the primary grounds of argument, is a common one in the United States; however, in most cases, a dam displaces few people.
Roy opens our eyes to the plight of thousands and thousands of people living in India, most of them already poor and with little political influence who are forced to leave their homes and try to find a new way to support themselves. I am not in a position to assure you of the accuracy of her statistics and statistics can always be manipulated, but her image of the conditions of the displaced is well worth being aware of.
The Sardar Sarovar dam in India was fiercely debated. One website described one of the resettlement villages for the people who were displaced by this dam.
"The sites, severely lacking basic infrastructure such as sewage and irrigation facilities, can themselves hardly be called villages. Yet since the mid-1990s, these sites have been home to 80 families who once lived in the now-submerged village of Makhekheda. Nearly 12,000 other families live in sites that pass as villages off similar unnavigable roads across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. These families, who had their land and livelihoods submerged as a result of the 360-foot high Sardar Sarovar dam, dot the unseen landscape of the Sardar Sarovar project."**
Statistics of the people affected vacillate wildly between 50,000 to 1 million*** however, to the families involved, the gravity of their situation is barely affected by a massive number of neighbors. For these families, they are forced to promptly create a new way of earning a living and rewrite traditions that may be generations old. The hunger strikes and protests against these dam projects may reside more with people rehabilitation and perhaps less on the ecological damage or even the economic necessity. Critics also claim that many of the dam projects end up providing only a fraction of the amount of energy intended.****
Arundhati Roy
I sought out her work because an essay I was reading said that Roy believes that individuals should take responsibility for themselves and stop claiming to be a victim. Few people feel this way today as many of us are tempted to blame the government, parents, spouses, or society for our own shortcomings. "Power Politics" is her only book I’ve read so far. Further research into her work leaves me impressed at her forthrightness, clarity of purpose, and commitment to others. She has been widely criticized for her actions and has also been taken to court. In response to criticism, she said:
"I am hysterical. I'm screaming from the bloody rooftops. And he and his smug little club are going 'Shhhh... you'll wake the neighbours!' I want to wake the neighbours, that's my whole point. I want everybody to open their eyes".*****
Is there an issue you feel passionate about? Have you been contributing to the solution? Have you turned your passion into commitment?
Looking for more?
The International Day of Action Against Dams For Rivers, Water, and Life
Narmada River project – problems and solutions – evaluates Indian dam project calling for 3,000 dams on the Narmada River.
Cited sources
*Arundhati Roy donates book royalties
**”Dam-Affected Resettlement in India: A Photo Essay” by Chhandasi Pandya, April 29, 2006
***”Dam-Affected Resettlement in India: A Photo Essay” by Chhandasi Pandya, April 29, 2006
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10177
****Dams do not provide expected energy output
*****Arundhati Roy quote : SCIMITARS IN THE SUN, Frontline, Volume 18 - Issue 01, Jan. 06 - 19, 2001
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Book & Movie Explore Challenges of Marriage
Doris Lessing in her 1950 novel, "The Grass is Singing," many of Edith Wharton's stories, and the recent movie "The Painted Veil" explore the tragic consequences of the socially upheld expectation of women to marry. In today's culture, women still feel compelled to "make a good match" even if they consider themselves modern or progressive.
Kitty Garstin, played by Naomi Watts in the 2006 film "The Painted Veil" was confronted by her family who implied that they no longer wished to financially support her and that it was time for her to get married, thus becoming someone else's burden. This film was set in the 1920's and Kitty did not have the skills and society did not have the infrastructure to allow a woman of her class to earn her own income and thereby support herself. Kitty's only path to "independence" was to get married, even if she didn't want to, or as in this case, was not in love with her suitor. Her marriage led her on a downward tailspin to the bleak, grim lands of inner China to a town decimated by a cholera outbreak. Left here, isolated from her previous life, Kitty is forced to not only grow up but to also forge her own path and identity.
Doris Lessing's female character, Mary Turner of "The Grass is Singing" does not fare as well as Kitty Garstin. The story opens with her murder and then back tracks to how she arrived at such a fatal ending. Mary Turner was unlike Kitty, and more like some of Edith Wharton's women, she worked and supported herself even if the income was meager. Mary Turner was successful with her office job and socially successful. She was happy and independent until she overheard some of her friends criticizing her for remaining single. Mary felt shame at their stigma, as if being single meant that she was incomplete or undesirable, instead of single by her own choice. Many women still experience this same stigma today. They hear exclamations like "Why is a nice girl like you still single?"
Mary, like Kitty, enters into a hostile, brutal married environment. It isn't that the husbands are horrible but where they live as the result of their marriage leaves them isolated. Edith Wharton's women also often leave a life of some independence to get married and "become fulfilled and respectable" only to find themselves in a bitter, often devastating struggle to survive. (Read "The Age of Innocence" and "Bunner Sisters")
Women's literature often explores the reconciliation of individual identity and marriage (whether it is one filled with love or not).
Kitty Garstin, played by Naomi Watts in the 2006 film "The Painted Veil" was confronted by her family who implied that they no longer wished to financially support her and that it was time for her to get married, thus becoming someone else's burden. This film was set in the 1920's and Kitty did not have the skills and society did not have the infrastructure to allow a woman of her class to earn her own income and thereby support herself. Kitty's only path to "independence" was to get married, even if she didn't want to, or as in this case, was not in love with her suitor. Her marriage led her on a downward tailspin to the bleak, grim lands of inner China to a town decimated by a cholera outbreak. Left here, isolated from her previous life, Kitty is forced to not only grow up but to also forge her own path and identity.
Doris Lessing's female character, Mary Turner of "The Grass is Singing" does not fare as well as Kitty Garstin. The story opens with her murder and then back tracks to how she arrived at such a fatal ending. Mary Turner was unlike Kitty, and more like some of Edith Wharton's women, she worked and supported herself even if the income was meager. Mary Turner was successful with her office job and socially successful. She was happy and independent until she overheard some of her friends criticizing her for remaining single. Mary felt shame at their stigma, as if being single meant that she was incomplete or undesirable, instead of single by her own choice. Many women still experience this same stigma today. They hear exclamations like "Why is a nice girl like you still single?"
Mary, like Kitty, enters into a hostile, brutal married environment. It isn't that the husbands are horrible but where they live as the result of their marriage leaves them isolated. Edith Wharton's women also often leave a life of some independence to get married and "become fulfilled and respectable" only to find themselves in a bitter, often devastating struggle to survive. (Read "The Age of Innocence" and "Bunner Sisters")
Women's literature often explores the reconciliation of individual identity and marriage (whether it is one filled with love or not).
Looking for more?
- Novel "The Grass is Singing" by Doris Lessing, 1950 This novel is well written and is an interesting manifestation of how people’s choices govern their lives. It is set in Rhodesia (now South Africa) and among other things, depicts the class struggle between British settlers and the native African population.
- Movie: "The Painted Veil" starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, 2006 This movie is a visually stunning film. It is a quiet film with endearing characters and gripping struggle. It is based on the 1925 novel by W. Somerset Maugham, which I have not read.
- Doris Lessing audio clips – excerpt readings and interviews
- Biography of Doris Lessing, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
- To learn about more women who inspire us and who guide us, please read my articles at
Famiss – Women’s Success History & Portraits
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Exploring the Dim Recesses of Our Imagination
Have you struggled to express an idea because you felt that others would think you were crazy? Have you ever thought that if others could read your thoughts they would think you were a freak? The creators of the movie "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" imagine how famous American photographer, Diane Arbus felt about her art and her private world.
Movie Review: Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
2006 film starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downing Jr.
According to this film, Diane Arbus considered herself a freak because of the inner workings of her mind. Diane (played by Nicole Kidman) personifies her inner struggles, her inner voice and inner vision which finally led to her artistic expression. Robert Downing Jr. is disguised under a full body of fur. Downing, representing Diane’s core self, is afflicted with a hair growth condition that makes him a side show freak and an outcast. Diane slowly develops a relationship with this outcast and learns how to transform him into a public representation – her art.
The film is a little slow but it is still a fascinating, strange depiction of a woman's insistence on discovering and bringing forth her true identity. If you feel that you have dark aspects of your personality that are better left untouched and private then you may enjoy this film and Diane's struggle. She finally found the courage to manifest herself even though the process was painful.
The movie does not claim to be a biography but rather an imaginary portrait. Its portrayal is like a fantasy and reminds me of the way M. Night Shaymalan tells stories.
Diane Arbus was an American photographer who died in 1971. Her work focused on people who would not normally be featured in a photograph. She photographed transvestites, dwarfs, and people who were in odd poses. Her photograph of two twin girls, one looking somber the other one slightly happy, was the inspiration for the twin girls in the movie The Shining. A copy of the “Identical Twins” sold for $500,000 in 2005.*
*Source cited: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005051102052.html
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Movie Review: Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
2006 film starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downing Jr.
According to this film, Diane Arbus considered herself a freak because of the inner workings of her mind. Diane (played by Nicole Kidman) personifies her inner struggles, her inner voice and inner vision which finally led to her artistic expression. Robert Downing Jr. is disguised under a full body of fur. Downing, representing Diane’s core self, is afflicted with a hair growth condition that makes him a side show freak and an outcast. Diane slowly develops a relationship with this outcast and learns how to transform him into a public representation – her art.
The film is a little slow but it is still a fascinating, strange depiction of a woman's insistence on discovering and bringing forth her true identity. If you feel that you have dark aspects of your personality that are better left untouched and private then you may enjoy this film and Diane's struggle. She finally found the courage to manifest herself even though the process was painful.
The movie does not claim to be a biography but rather an imaginary portrait. Its portrayal is like a fantasy and reminds me of the way M. Night Shaymalan tells stories.
Diane Arbus was an American photographer who died in 1971. Her work focused on people who would not normally be featured in a photograph. She photographed transvestites, dwarfs, and people who were in odd poses. Her photograph of two twin girls, one looking somber the other one slightly happy, was the inspiration for the twin girls in the movie The Shining. A copy of the “Identical Twins” sold for $500,000 in 2005.*
For More Information:
- See Diane Arbus’ photography online – great online photography book featuring Diane Arbus artwork.
- The movie starring Nicole Kidman: Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
- Biography of Diane Arbus
- An interesting book that tells the stories of other famous people who turned their odd inner musings into art and success, people like Winston Churchill and Franz Kafka, is called "Churchill’s Black Dog, Kafka’s Mice and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind" by Anthony Storr.
- Learn more about famous women and their search for meaning. Visit Famiss- women making and discovering their own history
*Source cited: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005051102052.html
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Reinventing Yourself, Changing Your Destiny – Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith book review
When we claim a moment to be magical, we feel as if that moment transcends our normal experiences, our ingrained rules, and our cultural outcomes. Magic raises us out of skepticism slowly but if it is good enough, we become fervent believers.
Magic realism is a literary term describing how a story is told. The stories are grounded in reality but some characters have "supernatural" or larger-than-life abilities. With magical realism, women can take flight with dewy, velvet wings, fleeing a life that only had one outcome by trying to escape her iron-clad destiny.
Authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez (author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera - which was just released as a movie) and Isabel Allende (author of The House of Spirits) and Gina B. Nahai (author of Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith) are some authors who write magical realism. Gina Nahai's character, Roxanna the Angel, took flight from a generational destiny and from Tehran where a woman's ability to escape her fate is so difficult that she must don silky white wings and leap from a balcony with all the faith that she will land softly in a new place.
"Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith" is a powerful, compelling, and fascinating novel depicting several women's lives, women who refuse to meekly accept the lot they were assigned in life and women who forged a new life for themselves.
These women didn't create their new lives without sacrifice, humiliation, pain, loss, or mistakes, yet they succeeded in reinventing themselves and elevating their human experience beyond the level of survival.
Mercedes the Movie Star used her extreme beauty to control the men who thought they controlled women. Fräulein Claude completely overhauled herself by denying her national heritage and insisting that she was of German noble descent. Alexandra the Cat also claimed a noble birth and presumed all the dignity that comes with such a claim. Roxanna the Angel literally flew away from her destiny until she could no longer avoid past and her choices.
The story is mostly about Roxanna and the effect her choices had on the people she loved, including her daughter Lili. When trying to make sense of her life and understanding her choices, Roxanna told her daughter:
"In the beginning, I tell Lili, there were many choices and I believing I was doomed, let them go to waste."
Even though Roxanna fled, she never believed she could truly escape her destiny and maintain any relationship with her family and friends - they were incompatible. This conviction led her to make devastating, painful choices.
I've heard the voices of many women who feel so trapped that they become convinced that absolute escape is the only solution. Famous female authors like Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf are two women who chose death as their reconciliation. Other women are not as extreme but they fight the chasm between who they think they should be and who they believe they are with an exhaustive force.
Do you ever feel like reinventing yourself or simply escaping? How would you do it? What would you be escaping? Is your reinvention completely incongruent with your current life?
I encourage you to read "Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith" (1999) by Gina B. Nahai to see how her characters managed their reinvention.
Gina B. Nahai was born in Iran who later moved to Los Angeles, California. She is also the author of a new book entitled "Caspian Rain," "Sunday's Silence," and "Cry of the Peacock."
--Looking for more? Visit Famiss, women making and discovering their own history
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Magic realism is a literary term describing how a story is told. The stories are grounded in reality but some characters have "supernatural" or larger-than-life abilities. With magical realism, women can take flight with dewy, velvet wings, fleeing a life that only had one outcome by trying to escape her iron-clad destiny.
Authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez (author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera - which was just released as a movie) and Isabel Allende (author of The House of Spirits) and Gina B. Nahai (author of Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith) are some authors who write magical realism. Gina Nahai's character, Roxanna the Angel, took flight from a generational destiny and from Tehran where a woman's ability to escape her fate is so difficult that she must don silky white wings and leap from a balcony with all the faith that she will land softly in a new place.
"Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith" is a powerful, compelling, and fascinating novel depicting several women's lives, women who refuse to meekly accept the lot they were assigned in life and women who forged a new life for themselves.
These women didn't create their new lives without sacrifice, humiliation, pain, loss, or mistakes, yet they succeeded in reinventing themselves and elevating their human experience beyond the level of survival.
Mercedes the Movie Star used her extreme beauty to control the men who thought they controlled women. Fräulein Claude completely overhauled herself by denying her national heritage and insisting that she was of German noble descent. Alexandra the Cat also claimed a noble birth and presumed all the dignity that comes with such a claim. Roxanna the Angel literally flew away from her destiny until she could no longer avoid past and her choices.
The story is mostly about Roxanna and the effect her choices had on the people she loved, including her daughter Lili. When trying to make sense of her life and understanding her choices, Roxanna told her daughter:
"In the beginning, I tell Lili, there were many choices and I believing I was doomed, let them go to waste."
Even though Roxanna fled, she never believed she could truly escape her destiny and maintain any relationship with her family and friends - they were incompatible. This conviction led her to make devastating, painful choices.
I've heard the voices of many women who feel so trapped that they become convinced that absolute escape is the only solution. Famous female authors like Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf are two women who chose death as their reconciliation. Other women are not as extreme but they fight the chasm between who they think they should be and who they believe they are with an exhaustive force.
Do you ever feel like reinventing yourself or simply escaping? How would you do it? What would you be escaping? Is your reinvention completely incongruent with your current life?
I encourage you to read "Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith" (1999) by Gina B. Nahai to see how her characters managed their reinvention.
Gina B. Nahai was born in Iran who later moved to Los Angeles, California. She is also the author of a new book entitled "Caspian Rain," "Sunday's Silence," and "Cry of the Peacock."
--Looking for more? Visit Famiss, women making and discovering their own history
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Indian Writer Arundhati Roy Reminds Us About an Artist's Role in Society
Arundhati Roy's observation (taken from her book: Power Politics)
"Painters, writers, singers, actors, dancers, filmakers, musicians are meant to fly, to push at the frontiers, to worry the edges of the human imagination, to conjure beauty from the most unexpected things, to find magic in places where others never thought to look."
"Painters, writers, singers, actors, dancers, filmakers, musicians are meant to fly, to push at the frontiers, to worry the edges of the human imagination, to conjure beauty from the most unexpected things, to find magic in places where others never thought to look."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)