Happy Formidable Women Day!
In honor of the release of The Motion by Lucy K Shaw, which is the first perfect-bound book I’ve released on my press, 421 Atlanta, I declare today to be FORMIDABLE WOMEN DAY. The secret theme of The Motion—from the cover picturing her sister and a painting by Tracey Emin to the very end—is formidable women, and Lucy herself is formidable in all that she does. Plus, it is the final day of Women’s History Month so it’s fitting that we look forward from history to celebrate the now and the future of the formidable women in our lives and hearts. Formidable women form other formidable women!
Lucy’s book ends with “An Incomplete List of People I would Want to Blurb My Chapbook,”and it’s almost exclusively women. Today she has made another list of books by formidable women, which is after the jump. Please join us in celebrating formidable women by making your own list of the formidable women who are alive to you. You can use a hashtag like #formidablewomen or #themotion so that we can find your list.—Amy McDaniel
Here’s what Lucy has to say about formidable women:
On the first track of her first album, Pink Friday, Nicki Minaj raps, ‘I’m fighting for the girls that never thought they could win’. And I am one of those girls. So when I made this list, I chose artists, writers and musicians, who have helped me to feel that I can succeed in whatever I choose to do, who have helped me to push myself in all areas of my life and who have broken down so many barriers for other women. I kind of wrote it for a joke originally, to be honest, (a lot of the people on the list are way too famous or way too dead to want to blurb my book) but now I feel really happy to see it there in the final pages. It’s very inspiring to me, to see all those names together.
I decided I wanted to write another list, if that’s what we’re doing now.
This one is of the books I think would go very nicely next to mine on your shelves:
WILDLIVES by Sarah Jean Aleander
Alone with Other People by Gabby Bess
Bluebird and Other Tattoos by Luna Miguel
i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together by Mira Gonzalez
Collected Adult Lessons by Amy McDaniel
Amy McDaniel teaches high school and runs 421 Atlanta, a very small press that publishes poetry and short prose. She is the author of two chapbooks, both with the words "Adult Lessons" in the title, and her writing has been published widely online and in print. She is the editor of Real Pants.
Latest posts by Amy McDaniel (see all)
- The Body Still Isn’t A Temple: On Pregnancy and the Cult of Purity - July 14, 2017
- Women and Their Friends - June 23, 2017
- Announcing the Black Words Matter Anthology: Poems by Baltimore Students - April 14, 2017
