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gwynnegaThrough the wonders of the Internet, I found an unexpected reference to an essay of mine ("Putting All My Eggs in One Basket," in No Body's Perfect: Stories by Teens about Body Image, Self-Acceptance, and the Search for Identity) in Sylvia Plath and the Mythology of Women Readers by Janet Badia:
"While it's often overlooked or ridiculed in the discourse about readers, what is obvious about Plath's writing, furthermore, is that it inspires young women especially, and it inspires them not only to read but to write as well. To listen to these young women is to come away with a very different portrait of the young Plath reader from the one depicted in the rhetoric. In preparing to teach a class on girl culture, I came across one particularly relevant example of Plath's influence on young women. In her contribution to a collection of vignettes written by teens and published in 2003, Gwynne Garfinkle describes the summer she set out à la Esther Greenwood to write a novel, despite discouragement and criticism from her boyfriend: 'That summer I learned the discipline required to become a novelist. Most weekdays I woke around nine, showered, and sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, a cup of sweetened Lipton's tea, and The Journals of Sylvia Plath. I'd eat and read,eating Plath's determination to be a writer, eating the books by writers she read--Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence and dozens of others--her plans to study languages; her work on poems and short stories; her bitter, slangy talk. . . Then I'd go to my room and lie on my bed with a spiral notebook and a pen.' Remarkable for the way it turns on its head the same trope of reading as eating that is so often used against Plath's readers, Gwynne's reflection suggests that young women readers gain something from Plath's writing that they've not been given credit for."
(I was actually in my thirties when I wrote the essay about being a teenage writer, as opposed to actually writing it when I was a teen as Badia seems to think...but otherwise, so cool!)
ETA: Meanwhile, in LA we're having anything but coolness, i.e., a stupid October heat wave. Bleh. It's supposed to cool off later in the week...
"While it's often overlooked or ridiculed in the discourse about readers, what is obvious about Plath's writing, furthermore, is that it inspires young women especially, and it inspires them not only to read but to write as well. To listen to these young women is to come away with a very different portrait of the young Plath reader from the one depicted in the rhetoric. In preparing to teach a class on girl culture, I came across one particularly relevant example of Plath's influence on young women. In her contribution to a collection of vignettes written by teens and published in 2003, Gwynne Garfinkle describes the summer she set out à la Esther Greenwood to write a novel, despite discouragement and criticism from her boyfriend: 'That summer I learned the discipline required to become a novelist. Most weekdays I woke around nine, showered, and sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, a cup of sweetened Lipton's tea, and The Journals of Sylvia Plath. I'd eat and read,eating Plath's determination to be a writer, eating the books by writers she read--Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence and dozens of others--her plans to study languages; her work on poems and short stories; her bitter, slangy talk. . . Then I'd go to my room and lie on my bed with a spiral notebook and a pen.' Remarkable for the way it turns on its head the same trope of reading as eating that is so often used against Plath's readers, Gwynne's reflection suggests that young women readers gain something from Plath's writing that they've not been given credit for."
(I was actually in my thirties when I wrote the essay about being a teenage writer, as opposed to actually writing it when I was a teen as Badia seems to think...but otherwise, so cool!)
ETA: Meanwhile, in LA we're having anything but coolness, i.e., a stupid October heat wave. Bleh. It's supposed to cool off later in the week...
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Date: 2012-10-02 12:03 am (UTC)We're not boiling like you guys in LA, but it's still too warm here. Bleah.
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Date: 2012-10-02 12:07 am (UTC)Los Angeles does this every year--a last blast of heat in October--but it annoys me every time. I want autumn!
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Date: 2012-10-02 08:22 am (UTC)It's supposed to get a LOT cooler here, but still no rain. I feel guilty grumbling because I know so many people this year who suffered awful heatwaves, and at least we didn't have that - just some real discomfort, mainly due to lack of A/C - T wants a window unit for next year.
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Date: 2012-10-02 04:51 pm (UTC)Thanks!!
A/C does make all the difference. A window unit would probably really help...
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Date: 2012-10-02 12:46 am (UTC)[hugs]
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Date: 2012-10-02 12:49 am (UTC)::hugs::
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