The association was founded almost a century ago to promote reading and to support the role of women in the community of the book. Martha Conway, one of three authors to read that evening believes that literacy is of the utmost importance in the lives of women because in today’s world women have such a crucial and critical role, not only as mothers but as of head of households and primary bread-earners.
The other two women authors reading excerpts from their books that night were, Carole Bumpus and Lisa Alpine. Speaking on behalf of the San Francisco WNBA chapter Kate Farrell, serves as president. She expressed why the Woman’s National Book Association is promoting National Reading Group Month. “National Reading Group Month is a reading initiative of the Women’s National Book Association observed in all chapters across the country each year during October. This is done to encourage the joy of shared reading. A WNBA committee reads many books throughout the year and then prepares the Great Group Reads list, said Farrell. “Titles are then selected on the basis of their appeal to reading groups from new authors, small presses, and lesser-known mid-list releases.”
The panel of authors discussed their books. The books were “Thieving Forest” (by Martha Conway), A Cup of Redemption (by Carole Bumpus), and “Wild Life” by (Lisa Alpine.) Each of the three authors answered questions about their work and their process.
Moderator for the evening, fellow association member Elise Frances Miller said, “first off, I have to point out something that made my task of defining themes both more difficult and more interesting: these three authors work in different genres. Lisa Alpine’s stories are memoirs and her central protagonist is herself; Carole Bumpus’s work is fictionalized memoir and history. Martha Conway’s work is historical novel, conceived out of her research and imagination.
She went on to say, “I sometimes think that just being alive is a risky adventure. And one sentence could define the act of writing stories or novels, whether or not they are true stories.” Miller noted that a “protagonist overcomes obstacles to reach desired goals.”
“So if all life is an adventure, said Miller, and all stories are adventures of a sort, then what sets apart our three authors here who tell tales about ‘adventuring women’?” Miller noted, “there is a difference between ‘adventurous’ and ‘adventuring,’ she said. To be ‘adventurous’ is a characteristic of a person, a combination of traits. ‘Adventuring’ as Miller described it, is a state of being: someone who goes forth on an adventure. All of these characters go forth on adventures,” she explained. “But in the hands of these authors, adventuring is not just trying new things and taking chances.”
“Their characters leave their homes or are forced out, observed Miller, and risk intense discomfort—in some cases I want to say ridiculous! For there is discomfort, demoralization, humiliation, isolation, sheer terror, loss of loved ones, not to mention risking injury and death. Each of these writers, she said created characters who take incredible risks, risks that not every person would be able to take, no matter what.”
Conway had mentioned to this reporter that she wanted to write something with more substance and in going back to her hometown state of Ohio she was intrigued by references she found concerning the Great Black Swamp of the Ohio territory. This was the great unknown in that area at that time; and as such it was a great place for a character go get lost. Conway’s female characters were tested to the limit trying to survive and find their way out.
For Carole Bumpus, the real-life experiences of a French woman she just happened to meet, pulled her in immediately. “I knew I just couldn’t walk away from her story, it changed my life,” Bumpus stated. And, as for Lisa Alpine’s books, they are filled with travel; not so much to a destination but a journey that touches the mind and the heart and transforms one’s life.
“Why do these women go through all this?” This is the question Miller asked. “Some of the themes contained within these books, said she are the motivating factors. They are compelled to go forth—by the unfolding of world events, by family loyalty, by love in the broadest sense, or by empathy, or by the need to earn a living, to survive, or even by insistent intellectual curiosity.”
And as Miller also pointed out, “some events or situations are inescapable, some motivation is often provided by internal emotions. And there is also, adventuring for adventuring’s sake, Miller said. Family loyalty is a common theme for Martha and Carole; curiosity unites Lisa and Carole’s main character; and the need to earn a living or survive unites all three.”
Beyond the motivation for adventuring Miller went on to say, “the female characters in these books possess, to greater or lesser extents, a baseline set of traits like courage, daring, resolve or conversely, impulsivity.” In other words, Miller pointed out, “if they were not ‘adventurous,’ they would not have been able to take action even when the motivation was strong.”
“Besides courage, said Miller, the more complex qualities are: attitudes toward people and ideas, adaptability, determination, and the ability to commit.”
“Then said Miller, are adventurousness and adventuring in literature presented differently for women than for men?” Miller pondered this question Yet as she pointed out, “on Goodreads (website), I found an interesting list called, ‘Strong Female Characters Written by Female Authors.’ There we find Jane Austin, Harper Lee, the Bronte sisters, and Margaret Mitchell along with many others, she said, some more recent. As we would expect, strong female characters are often created by female authors. However, said Miller, strong women do not always go adventuring.”
The panel discussion of the three authors focused on the motivations, passions and events which sent these characters off on their ‘adventuring;’ and on the personal traits which enabled these characters to be spurred by their motivations to take amazing risks. The authors also discussed how literary adventuring men are different from, at least, this group of literary adventuring women. “When I researched ‘adventurous men’ stated Conway, they were mostly individual heroes who stopped in different places but did not engage much beyond getting what they needed to continue on their journey.” “My adventuring characters, (in ‘Thieving Forest’ for example) Conway said, engaged with the communities they encountered; and sometimes decided to live among them permanently.”
“In the history of literature by female authors, said Miller, adventure is more often defined as risk-taking in one’s own sphere, requiring courage but less adaptability then a male adventurer, with a lesser degree of physical risk. Also, in literary history, Miller added, there is more emphasis on the converse trait of impulsiveness, and yes, some of the characters are thereby limited and trivialized. Think Scarlett O’Hara, said Miller, and both her wonderful and her maddening qualities.”
Miller is a published author herself. Her historical novel “A Time to Cast Away Stones will be re-released later this fall (by Sand Hill Review Press). Her novel initially published in 2012 is based upon the student riots of Paris regarding the anti-war protests in the spring of 1968. Miller’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in anthologies, both in print and online media.
For more information about the Group Reading Month and the Women’s National Book Association, visit the WNBA-San Francisco Chapter website.
