Looking for some Sunday inspiration? Maria Dahvana Headley, author most recently of Magnolia, wrote a seventeen tweet mini-essay on women’s agency in the arts. It’s personal, professional, gives good advice, and is about something near-and-dear to our hearts: writers being self-aware and claiming the time and space they need to create the best works they can.
The whole thread is worth your time, but here are a few highlights that caught my eye:
You know what's great about being 38? I don't do men's work anymore. Used to be, I thought I had to do theirs & mine too. Life is better!
— Maria DahvanaHeadley (@MARIADAHVANA) September 20, 2015Young women are often taught that men will die without our free help on work, eating, emotions. They will not.
— Maria DahvanaHeadley (@MARIADAHVANA) September 20, 2015I love men, but I do not love the patriarchy that puts women into chronically subordinate nurtureship of them, with false stakes.
— Maria DahvanaHeadley (@MARIADAHVANA) September 20, 2015This is all to say: what pleasure to stare into my own creative channel these days. I've a surplus of energy I used to use helping dudes.
— Maria DahvanaHeadley (@MARIADAHVANA) September 20, 2015I'm pro-love & pro-creative collaboration. You can have that, and this too. It's a lie that you can't. Fuck that lie.
— Maria DahvanaHeadley (@MARIADAHVANA) September 20, 201538 years into this life, 20 years as a professional writer, I roar with joy daily & it's because now my own work is what matters to me.
— Maria DahvanaHeadley (@MARIADAHVANA) September 20, 2015Share this note: