Uncommon Women

I missed my usual Friday post this week because I was out of town, giving a reading from the early chapters of The Golden Lynx at my alma mater, Mount Holyoke College. I shared the stage (figuratively speaking—it was a lecture hall) with five amazing women: two poets, two writers of personal essays/memoirs, and one essayist who is working on a novel. It was a pleasure just to meet them—much more to hear them read.

We were there to celebrate the 175th anniversary of Mount Holyoke’s founding (the first women’s college in the United States) and because we have all published in The Lyon Review, the literary magazine for MHC alumnae, faculty, and staff. If you’re interested, you can find a description of the event, with links to the individual authors and their works, at http://thelyonreview.com. Soon the Lyon Review site will also include videotapes of the readings.

So let’s hear it for uncommon women,* who keep life interesting and ask awkward questions and refuse to stand by while others try to suppress their voices, their ideas, and their contributions.

Skinner Hall, Mount Holyoke College, ca. 1896

It doesn’t look much different today.

www.clipart.com

*The title comes from Uncommon Women and Others, a play by Wendy Wasserstein ’71 about her experiences at Mount Holyoke College.