International Women’s Day Reading: In the Wings & Brought to Light

International Women’s Day Reading, from two anthologies of “creative non-fiction” stories about women who have been forgotten, overlooked, not given due credit, or simply not spoken their own story. Bernadette Rule of Hamilton edited these two books, “In the Wings: Stories of Forgotten Women,” and “Brought to Light: More Stories of Forgotten Women,” both published by Seraphim Editions (publisher Maureen Whyte).

Although this event is past, I want to mention it here — as it is never too late to recognize the achievements of women, in a wide range of fields. The anthologies include voices of a slave, an Abolitionist, a scientist, an artist, the mother of a musician, and many more. Eleven of the authors from these two books read from their work at the library, taking the audience on a journey through history and life. Thanks to the Library for hosting this event, to Bernadette for editing the books and then for organizing and mc-ing the reading, and to all my fellow-authors.
I read my story, “Another Twist of the Double Helix,” about Rosalind Franklin, the expert chemist whose crytal-photographs of DNA were used by Crick and Watson (without her knowledge and permission and, at the time, without giving her credit) to make their break-through discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. She had previously worked on the structure of coal, and was moving on to study viruses when she developed ovarian cancer and died at age 38, in 1958. She has now been more widely recognized: see the excellent biography “Rosalind Franklin: the Dark Lady of DNA” by Brenda Maddox, and “My Sister Rosalind Franklin” by her younger sister Jennifer Glynn.
The anthologies are available for sale at Bryan Prince Booksellers and on line.