Choice Words Read online

  Jean Valentine is author of over a dozen collections of poetry including Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, which won the National Book Award. She has received the Shelley Memorial Award, Bollingen Prize, and numerous other awards and served as State Poet of New York 2008–2010.

  Nicole Walker is the author of the collections The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet from Rose Metal Press and Sustainability: A Love Story from Mad Creek Books. Her previous books include Where the Tiny Things Are, Egg, Micrograms, Quench Your Thirst with Salt, and This Noisy Egg.

  Hilde Weisert’s 2015 poetry collection, The Scheme of Things, was published by David Robert Books. Her awards include the 2017 Gretchen Warren Award, 2016 Tiferet Journal Poetry Award, and 2008 Lois Cranston Poetry Award. She’s copresident of the Sandisfield Arts Center in western Massachusetts, and lives in Sandisfield and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. hildeweisert.com

  Lindy West is an American writer, comedian, and activist who publishes in Jezebel, GQ, and Guardian. Her books include Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman (now a show on Hulu) and The Witches Are Coming. She is the cofounder of #ShoutYour-Abortion and received the Women’s Media Center Social Media Award.

  Laura Wetherington’s first book, A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence Books), was selected by C. S. Giscombe for the National Poetry Series. She is the poetry editor for Baobab Press and currently teaches creative writing at Amsterdam University College and in SNC Tahoe’s low-residency MFA program.

  Lesley Wheeler’s forthcoming books include Unbecoming, her first novel; The State She’s In, her fifth poetry collection; and Poetry’s Possible Worlds, a suite of hybrid essays. Poetry editor of Shenandoah, she lives in Virginia, where she votes on the side of reproductive freedom.

  Arisa White is the author of You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, A Penny Saved, and Hurrah’s Nest. She coauthored Biddy Mason Speaks Up, the second book in the Fighting for Justice series for young readers. White is an assistant professor of creative writing at Colby College. arisawhite.com

  Vibra Willow is a longtime priestess, teacher, and ritualist in the Reclaiming tradition who has led many public and private rituals and contributed pieces to various publications on feminist witchcraft and paganism over the years. She is a retired lawyer and teaches human rights, English, and legal English to international lawyers.

  Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was an English writer and philosopher. She was the author of novels, a history of the French Revolution, an etiquette book, and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She died after birthing her second child (Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein). Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman was published posthumously.

  Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-born writer. She is the author of several plays and twelve collections of translations, anthologies, and poetry, including Keeping Time with Blue Hyacinths and The Conference of the Birds. She has lived in the UK and Trinidad and is presently based in Los Angeles. sholehwolpe.com

  Mo Yan is the author of The Garlic Ballads, The Republic of Wine, Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, Red Sorghum, and Pow! In 2012, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

  Galina Yudovich works as a program specialist in the Office of Global Women’s Health at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She is enrolled in the MSW program at San Francisco State University, where she is a Status of Women Policy Fellow.

  TIMELINE OF PRE-TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY WORKS

  Anonymous Balladeers, “Tam Lin” (c. 1549)

  Mary Wollstonecraft, from Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798)

  Amy Levy, “Magdalen” (1884)

  Edith Södergran, “We Women” (c. 1918)

  Georgia Douglas Johnson, “Motherhood” (1922)

  Dorothy Parker, “Lady with a Lamp” (1932)

  Langston Hughes, “Cora, Unashamed” (1934)

  Agnes Smedley, Daughter of Earth (1935)

  Zofia Nałkowska, Granica (Boundary) (1935)

  Gwendolyn Brooks, “the mother” (1945)

  Frank O’Hara, “An Abortion” (1952)

  Anne Sexton, “The Abortion” (1962)

  Violette Leduc, La Bâtarde (1964)

  Margaret Drabble, The Millstone (1965)

  Myrna Lamb, What Have You Done for Me Lately? (1968)

  Saniyya Saleh, “A Million Women Are Your Mother” (c. 1970)

  Margaret Atwood, Surfacing (1972)

  Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle (1973)

  Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust (1975)

  Diane di Prima, “Brass Furnace Going Out: Song, After an Abortion” (1975)

  Ntozake Shange, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf (1976)

  Colette Inez, “Nicolette” (1977)

  Marge Piercy, “Right to Life” (1980)

  Margaret Atwood, “Christmas Carols” (1981)

  Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place (1982)

  Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  ABOUT HAYMARKET BOOKS

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