Candice Millard shares how she learned to do deep research and the leap of faith she took to land her dream job. She explains how she knows which topics she can develop into books, including how she came across the idea for her next historical study. Millard also shares some teasers about her next book that will thrill you if you like women's stories and a bit of wartime intrigue. Click play now: this is such a special interview with one of America’s most eloquent popular historians.

If you have not read one of Candice Millard's riveting historical accounts, you should run–not walk–to your local bookseller to get a copy.  Where to start?  No better place than her gripping, revelatory telling of President Garfield’s assassination attempt, in DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE AND THE MURDER OF A PRESIDENT.  Then, treat yourself to the wonderful Netflix adaptation, DEATH BY LIGHTNING.  The convention scene is fantastic, and Matthew MacFayden gives a brilliant performance as Garfield's crazed assassin.  

If you have not read any Traci Brimhall, you’ve missed out on seeing through the eyes of someone who somehow–almost magically, at points–sews disparate parts together:  grief and joy, loss and abundance, science and poetry.

Yes, we take her brave and incandescent 2024 collection, LOVE PRODIGAL, as our starting point, and yes, this episode is about poetry, but that’s not all:  it’s a truly fulfilling conversation about the power of words to shape us and help us understand how to keep on living when we’ve been utterly burned to the ground.  Can we reemerge?  Can that old story of the Phoenix help us? Or do we need a new story?

Traci has published 4 acclaimed poetry collections, she is a distinguished Professor of English at Kansas State University, the 2023-2026 Kansas Poet Laureate, and the 2025 Guggenheim Poet-in-Residence.  That’s all pretty impressive, but when you hear Traci, you’ll be struck by how warm, relatable, and downright funny she is.   Plus, Traci has some pretty ingenious methods to help aspiring writers find their voice. If you like poetry, you’ll love this episode.  If you are a writer–of any kind–you’ll value Traci’s insights.  If you find the creative process fascinating–as Sonja and Vanessa do–you may even find new pathways, as Traci explains her tricks for bringing that withering inner critic to heel. 

Along the way, we enjoy the sweet, romantic give-and-take of a physicist + poet’s love story; Vanessa requests an aubade, minus the lover, and Sonja takes another stab at poor little Bella Swan.

Welcome to Manderley…or, rather, the romantic dream of Manderley.  Who needs a repurposed abbey or a Alpine castle when you have the genuine fire-devastated, ivy-swarmed, misty ruins of a historic manor house along the tempestuous north Atlantic coast? As if that were not Gothic enough, let’s go all out with an orphaned heroine and a very carefully guarded family secret.

SPOILERS Ahoy when you join Sonja and Vanessa as they discuss this 1938 bestseller, REBECCA.  It’s often promoted as a Gothic romance…but is it?  Is Maxim De Winter a proper Gothic hero?  Would you ride in his car? Are there real ghosts?  How are we defining a haunting? Is our unnamed narrator reliable?  Do we like her? Do the servants–once again–add a vital dimension to the mood and twists to the plot?  And which Mrs. De Winter wins? It probably depends on how you feel about having tea with bread and butter.

Along the way, Sonja redefines “gentle flirtation,” and Vanessa blushes, perusing a sexy botanical Tinder profile. 

REFERENCES:

The edition of REBECCA with the really insightful Afterword by Sally Beauman that Vanessa mentions is the 2023 Back Bay Books Edition.

If you’ve ever contemplated a governess career, perhaps Henry James’s THE TURN OF THE SCREW will give you pause.  Or maybe this bite-sized Gothic ghost story will thrill you with the chance of being in charge of a beautiful English country house with no master to tell you what to do.  But choose your adventure carefully because you might end up haunted and/or crazy and/or murdering someone.  

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they do a quick Henry James 101, and explore WITH SPOILERS his classic, 1898 ghost story.  Are there ghosts?  Is the governess losing her mind?  Why did Miles get expelled from boarding school? Are Miles and Flora the OG creepy literary kids?  What role does hysteria play? Is there a spell cast over the entire plot?  Is the story a trap to catch the reader? How does the novella, set at Bly Manor, link to the Netfilx show, THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR? 

We’ll address these questions, and along the way, Sonja will propose a sexy theory, and Vanessa will suggest that the bosom can be a murder weapon. 

REFERENCES:

While we did not look at JANE EYRE as a Gothic tale, we did think about whether it counts as a female odyssey in Season 1:  Can a Lowly Governess Have an Odyssey?

Here is an overview of James Literary Criticism, including Edmund Wilson’s influential article, “The Ambiguity of Henry James” from 1934.

Here is the article about how Henry James felt about Jane Austen.

For more information about the Hysteria Diagnosis in the late 19th/early 20th century, check out this link. 

Here’s a great article celebrating the ambiguity of Turn of the Screw.

Here is a link to the article that offers Henry James's take on several women writers that Vanessa cites in the episode.

In the world of the Gothic, after you bang on a few castle doors, you’re bound to run into a vampire.  Bram Stoker, barrister and theater manager, notably closed out the 19th century by leaving us with his vampire masterpiece, DRACULA.

In this week’s episode, Sonja and Vanessa explore how Bram Stoker brews his very own brand of Gothic.  Legends of the Carpathian mountains mix with modern inventions and modern ideas, like that of the New Woman.  With 3 established female vampires, a newly-minted female vampire, and one beloved young wife teetering on the brink of the undead, women make up a crucial part of a tale that spans from England to the heart of eastern Europe. There are undeniably strong women in the novel, but is it a feminist text?  

Along the way, we meet a “train fiend,” Sonja muses on sexy lancets, and Vanessa concedes that lawyers may well be the greatest blood suckers of all.

REFERENCES:

Here is a link to the article by Dracula scholar, Elizabeth Miller, and her overview of scholarship of the novel. 

If you would like to know more about Dracula scholar, Elizabeth Miller, then check out her wiki page. It’s so impressive how much she single-handedly added to the field.  One might say, in walked a woman, and the rest is history.

Sonja read from supporting materials in her edition of Dracula that can be bought new or second hand.

Who wants to break all the rules? Who wants to tear it all down and make the world anew? Emily Brontë does, that’s who. 

If you imagined WUTHERING HEIGHTS was some quaint Victorian romantic ghost story…think again.  Honestly, there is just no other book like it.  This 1848 work is truly sui generis. It’s like Emily Brontë, in her one and only book, before she dies at age 30, writes an off-the-scale earthquake into life under the unassuming and isolated Yorkshire moors, and her quake violently, mercilessly shakes the foundations of Patriarchy, class distinctions, racial hierarchy, traditional marriage, expectations of femininity, the role of the Gothic heroine, traditional ideas of masculinity, Christianity, the legal system, traditions of hospitality, and the tropes of Romance, including the so-called brooding romantic hero.  Nothing escapes unscathed.  

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they share some brief biographical information on Emily Brontë, explain some notable critical takes on the novel, consider the outer limits of revenge, explain why Heathcliff is rarely portrayed accurately in film adaptations, and pretty much stand in complete awe of WUTHERING HEIGHTS, a page-turning labyrinthian story about storytelling. 

Along the way, Sonja pines for a dance with strangers while wearing a red dress, and we try not to think very hard about Heathcliff’s double-wide-coffin fantasy.  

REFERENCES:

If you have not read WUTHERING HEIGHTS, check out your local bookstore, and if you don’t have one, consider ordering from our legendary bookstore, The Raven, right here in beautiful, quirky, historical, downtown Lawrence, Kansas.

Here is the link to the Bronte House Museum page that details the racial history of Liverpool and how that affects our reading of Heathcliff.

The article that Sonja mentions about the symbolism of Catherine’s whip, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, can be found here.

Here is an online edition of WUTHERING HEIGHTS that includes Charlotte Brontë’s introduction, explaining the sisters’ pen names, their publishing history, Emily’s temperament, and Charlotte’s take on her younger sister’s novel.  

Sonja mentions the term “femme covert,” and if you are not sure what that is, here is a link to an article from the National Women's History Museum about the concept and the huge impact it has had on women historically.

We also reference previous IWAW episodes linked here:  Interview with Heather Aimee O'Neill; Emily St. Aubert is the heroine of Ann Radcliffe’s novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, which we cover in a two-part episode; our episode on Tristan & Iseult explores the origins of romance; and we have an episode on Jane Eyre that intersects with the WUTHERING HEIGHTS episode in terms of the Gothic and romance.

Once a genre gains popularity, here come the parodies.  Jane Austen grew up, petticoats deep in Gothic novels, and Jane had thoughts on reading them, writing them, and the effect they had on women readers. Our last novel, Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO is mentioned multiple times in Jane Austen’s NORTHANGER ABBEY, finished in 1799 but not published until a few months after Austen’s death in 1817.

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they explore the historical and literary context of this lesser known and sadly lesser-loved Jane Austen novel.  Find out why being Mrs. Tilney would be better than being Mrs. Darcy. Hear about a Jane Austen narrator that is not ambiguous and hard to pin down in a meta story about reading…a story that seems to agree with IWAW: namely, that stories shape us.

Along the way, we discover  there is no crime in early 19th century England, we confirm that female frenemies have always been a thing, and Jane Austen finds herself caught in a late 18th century catch-and-kill publishing move.

REFERENCES:

If you have not read NORTHANGER ABBEY, you should stop by your local bookstore, and if you don’t have one, order it from our local Lawrence bookstore, The Raven.

The novel that references monks molesting nuns is Matthew Lewis’s THE MONK from 1796.

If you have not read Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO from 1794, you can dive into those 600+ pages, or let us do the reading for you by listening to our fun, educational, romp through the plot in our MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO shows, Part 1 and Part 2. 

Also, as always, we highly recommend Rachel Feder’s brilliant study of romantic heroes, THE DARCY MYTH or at least check out  our show about it.

Much of the biographical information for this episode was taken from Claire Tomalin’s careful and thorough biography, JANE AUSTEN: A LIFE.

We also reference Charlotte Lennox’s THE FEMALE QUIXOTE  from 1752 & FORDYCE'S SERMONS a collection of advice to young ladies from 1766.

McCormick Templeman’s atmospheric, twisty, gothic mystery novel, ATLAS OF UNKNOWABLE THINGS came out October 7th, and if you haven’t ordered your copy, run–don’t walk–to your local bookstore!  

In this special double interview, McCormick talks about her book (no spoilers!), her literary influences, her creative process, and her friend and colleague, Rachel Feder, author of THE DARCY MYTH, offers her literary expertise and gives ATLAS her highest praise, calling it a Gothic novel that is “both subversive and progressive.” 

This interview digs into fascinating, larger questions about the Gothic. Why has the Gothic genre been so enduring? Is the Gothic femme-coded? What were Ann Radcliffe’s distinctions between “terror gothic” and “horror gothic?” What is the link between traditional Gothic and Dark Academia? Is Gothic always a commentary on patriarchy?  And, yes, we dare to ask if female writers do Gothic better. Writers that come up in conversation are Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Brontë, Ann Radcliffe, Stephen King, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mary Wollstonecraft, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Mary Shelley, and even William Carlos Williams pops in for a cameo.  

Plus, McCormick Templeman points us in the direction of some HOT NEW WRITERS to watch, and we’ve put links to all of them in the reference section below. 

Along the way, Edgar Allen Poe squeezes into a cheer uniform, “Raised Myself on Gothic” becomes a t-shirt slogan, and we plan a castle turret sleepover, replete with veils, casement windows, and reading from a copy of E. B. Browning’s AURORA LEIGH by moonlight, whilst keeping warm ‘round a wee fire, fed with pages torn from M. G. Lewis’s THE MONK.

REFERENCES:

Grab your copy of ATLAS OF UNKNOWABLE THINGS asap! Learn more about McCormick Templeman at her groovy website.  She is also on  Instagram.

To discover Rachel Feder’s oeuvre, Rachel's website is a great place to start.  And if you have a Swiftie fan in your family, DO check out her book, TAYLOR SWIFT BY THE BOOK, as a really special Christmas gift. Rachel is also very active on Instagram!

If you don’t have a favorite local bookstore, we always recommend stopping by or ordering from The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, Kansas. 

If you have not read Rachel Fader’s THE DARCY MYTH, absolutely treat yourself to it, and if not that, listen to the In Walks a Woman Episode on The Darcy Myth. By the way, Rachel’s last name is pronounced “FAY-der,” and we got it wrong the whole episode before we knew better…thankfully, she has graciously forgiven us.  

Here are the Author Names that McCormick Templeman mentions in the episode:

Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint https://www.thiriimyokyawmyint.com/

Dennis J. Sweeney https://www.dennisjamessweeney.com/

Khadijah Queen https://www.khadijahqueen.com/

Camille DeAngelis https://www.cometparty.com/

Heather Aimee O’Neill published her debut novel, THE IRISH GOODBYE, on the last day of September, and it’s already started a reading wildfire:  People Magazine just made it their Pick of the Week, it’s Apple Books’s October Staff Pick, and Jenna Bush Hager announced it as her “Read with Jenna” on the Today Show last week.  Go, Heather!  

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they ask Heather about dyslexia, her early years as a poet, the mentors who inspired her, her transition from poetry to prose, the importance of sisters, and the emotional work of finding her way to and through the creation of this beautiful first novel, THE IRISH GOODBYE.  To spend time with Heather Aimee O’Neill is to dip into our shared cultural struggles and losses and to find a way to embrace and be at peace with all the messiness of relationships–especially with family.  If you’ve ever simultaneously anticipated and dreaded holiday family gatherings, you’ll relate to her characters, and you’ll value Heather’s warmth and honesty in this interview.  

Everyone is trying to get 5 minutes of this hot new novelist’s time, and she graciously gave way more than that to In Walks a Woman, so we’re betting you won’t find another interview that is as deep and thoughtful as this one. Start October right with the fourth in IWAW’s Authors’ Series! 

Along the way, Sonja admits to some baking trauma, Heather invents “Long-Island Gothic,” and Vanessa loses track of Chekhov’s raccoon.

REFERENCES:

To learn more about Heather Aimee O’Neill, here is website & she’s can be found on Instagram.

If you live in Lawrence, Kansas, head on down to The Raven Bookstore on Mass or place an order through them at  the Raven Bookstore Website.

When we mention “Eric” in this interview, that would be English professor and former Poet Laureate of Kansas, Eric McHenry.  Heather considers Eric one of her most important mentors, and Sonja is so fond of Eric she married him and has two kids with him.  If you want to check him out, here’s a good place to start!

Heather Aimee O’Neill references The Shit No One Tells you About Writing Podcast, and it’s legit–go check it out if you’re an aspiring writer!

If you want to purchase The Irish Goodbye, Heather Aimee O’Neill has been collaborating with Barnes & Noble, and this link will let you support them.

If you are looking for Heather Aimee O’Neill 2011 poetry collection, Memory Future–the one Sonja mentions–you should see if your local bookstore can order it for you…but if not, here is a link to Amazon.  It’s not as widely available as her new novel, but it’s fantastic and totally worth hunting down.

As with the first part of our Udolpho episode, this is full of spoilers, so don’t listen if you are up for reading about 300 pages (approximately half) of this Ann Radcliffe novel.  However, if you are seeking a lively summary that will allow you to chat confidently about THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO at your next cocktail party, do push play.

When you do, you will find yourself waist deep in banditti and pirates (which might seem like the same thing, but you’d be wrong).  The story leaves the fabled Castle of Udolpho, but the intrigue does not end as Emily winds her way back, by road and by sea, to her homeland of France, and the patriarchal real estate hustle continues, while Radcliffe makes sure that every, single imaginable moment of mystery that we’ve encountered in the novel is tidily and rationally explained. 

Then, we turn to the question of whether you should go ahead and read this novel yourself.  What will you gain?  What is there that we have not captured in our summary?  The answer might surprise you.

Along the way, Sonja finds handy travel cash under a horse’s saddle, Vanessa does some “performative sighing” after summarizing this brick of a novel, and both Sonja and Vanessa agree that wallowing in melancholy does have its undeniable charms.  

REFERENCES:

After recording about 50 episodes, itt’s hard not to refer back to books we’ve read for the pod, and you can find all of it in our previous seasons:  check out our episode on Samuel Richardson’s 1740 Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded; for the reference on Mrs. Ramsey and Lily Brisco, here is a link to our To the Lighthouse episode; in the discussion about metaphorical windows, you might like these episodes: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Madeline Miller’s Circe, Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba,  Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and our 3-part analysis of Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

If you are interested in our spicy episode on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” you’ll have to go to our Patreon–but we promise it’s worth it.

Welcome to Season 4: “Haunting Women”!

Here’s your first scare: Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 gothic classic, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, is 290,897 words long.  For the average reader, reading at a speed of 300 WPM, that would take 13 hours and 5 minutes to read. And that does not count potty and snack breaks. If you are up for it, go for it!  If not, as Sonja likes to say, we offer “Cliff’s Notes for Adults,” and we’ll bravely take you through the book.  So are there spoilers in this episode?  YES. YES. YES.

THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO was first published in 4 volumes, so this episode (dare we say heroically?) takes you through both volumes 1 & 2 in about an hour.  What awaits you?  Lots of patriarchy in the form of castles, marriages for property, and men who say that it’s your fault they have to kidnap you because you wouldn’t say yes to their marriage proposal.  We also pay tribute to Ann Radcliffe’s expansive imagination: Radcliffe, a woman who had never left her home country of England before writing this sprawling travel narrative through mountains and dales and mountains and villages…and, well, more mountains.  We review what “Gothic” means, especially to British writers of the 18th and 19th century, and we once again find that saucy, babbling servants make the lives of bland rich people more exciting. 

Along the way, we bump into Scooby-Doo, and we play some Udolpho Bingo (Sonja wins), and both Sonja and Vanessa claim they’d marry a stalker who carved sonnets about them into garden walls.  

REFERENCES:

Vanessa’s reference to Pamela is to Samuel Richardson’s 1740 novel, PAMELA: OR, VIRTUE REWARDED, which we cover in Season 3: Episode 5.

Sonja and Vanessa thought it best to put the last episode of season 3 safely on their Patreon...if you go there, you'll find out why!

www.patreon.com/InWalksAWoman

Yes, you kinda have to be LIKE a virgin because, really, who knows if there is such a thing as REAL virginity?  Hanne Blank, historian and author of VIRGINITY:  THE UNTOUCHED HISTORY (2007), certainly makes a girl question the whole story–and virginity IS a story, not a biological fact.

If you haven’t heard of Blank’s thoroughly researched, sharply-written and entertainingly wry history of virginity, treat yourself to a great read–you’ll be glad you did!  As you drive to the bookstore,  listen to this episode, as we take you through highlights of a history that lays the groundwork for our season on “fallen women.”  After all, if you are going to fall, you have to fall from somewhere, and virginity has traditionally been the precipice from which patriarchy most enjoys watching women tumble to their doom.

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they share Blank’s surprising and yet predictable, funny and yet tragic findings, on all things virginal.  For starters, what defines virginity? Is there even such a thing as a hymen? Why was virginity thought to give you superpowers? Does Jesus even care about virginity? Why is virginity still seen as a way to cure sexually transmitted diseases?  Why–if you could go back in a time machine to ancient Rome–might you consider signing up to be a Vestal Virgin? What’s the link between Martin Luther’s Reformation and the concept of the “old maid” that haunts many a Jane Austen heroine? How are concepts of virginity and colonialism intertwined?  And why, dear listener, would you ever think it was a good idea to put a leech…down there?  

Along the way, find out why Sonja is a virgin martyr fan girl, and discover the shocking results of Vanessa’s head/neck ratio virginity test.  

REFERENCES:

Hanne Blank’s Virgin: The Untouched History is such a great read that we hope you buy it or check it out from your library. Our episode only touches the surface of the detailed and fascinating research she presents on the topic.  

If you are interested in Virginia Woolf’s assertion that virginity is a “fetish,” it’s best to read her entire section, "If Shakespeare Had a Sister" from A Room of One’s Own. 

We reference several previous episodes:  Season 2 Episode 1 explains Gerda Lerner’s theories on the beginnings of patriarchy; Season 4 Episode 5 explores DRACULA and the medical use of wine to help with vampiric blood loss; Season 3 Episode 10 discusses Sarah Waters’s THE PAYING GUESTS and early 20th century abortive concoctions. 

In the third of our author interviews, Sonja & Vanessa are proud to feature another Lawrence, Kansas local author:  Rachel McCarthy James.  If the name sounds familiar, it’s because she co-authored 2017’s cold-case cracking tour-de-force, Man on the Train, in which she and her coauthor, Bill James, solve a hundred-year old serial axe murderer mystery.  In her new book, Rachel traces the history of the axe as tool, weapon, and cultural artifact. Whack Job includes so many killer stories (pun intended!), like the story of a murder victim, from 430,000 BCE, found along with an axe in the “Pit of Bones” in northern Spain.  Whack Job also recounts hair-raising true crime stories that hit much closer to home, like the daylight axe murder of Frank Lloyd Wright’s mistress and five others at his Wisconsin “Love Cottage” in 1914.  

In our interview, Rachel shares insights into her research methods, her travels, her “rabbit holes,” her original discoveries, the experience of working with editors to shape her manuscript–in short, the honest, hard work, determination, and sacrifice behind a well-researched and well-written history book.  Plus, you are in for a treat because Rachel shares some fascinating stories that didn’t make it into the book! 

Along the way, Vanessa and Rachel hatch a hatchet business venture, Sonja drools at hearing a new, non-cherry-tree axe story about George Washington, and the axe gets compared to an important but much maligned female body part. 

REFERENCES:

Rachel's website

You can purchase Whack Job at any bookseller, but we suggest ordering it from our outstanding local bookstore, The Raven, in the heart of Lawrence, Kansas.

This book and this episode is like a fruit smoothie by the sunny seashore–light, sweet, gentle first love vibes. This is a YA selection we have chosen to find out what the youngest set values in romance stories.  Appropriately, it is not an “E” episode–first time in the season!  Sonja and Vanessa are joined again by their Designated Gen Z Reader, Sage McHenry, to better understand the meteoric rise of this book series…now television series.

Unless you’ve been living under ye olde proverbial Rock, you know that the “Summer I Turned Pretty” franchise is a cultural phenomenon with staggering fan engagement on all social platforms.  Join us as we explore what makes it so appealing and what tropes it shares with other romances we’ve analyzed this season. Of course, Vanessa asks Sage some pesky questions, like, are all the messages of the series positive for younger female readers. As always, Sage “Designated Z” McHenry gives as good as she gets.  Join us to see what you think…can we enjoy something and look at it critically?  

Along the way, incest jumps out at us, Sonja loyally picks the “right” boy from the series to keep her daughter happy, and Vanessa finds out the golden retriever she hastily adopted might not turn out to be as adorable as he seemed. 

Welcome to our 2nd episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”!   Amy Stuber joined us in the studio, and the time flew by.  Listening to this conversation, you’ll feel like you are sitting in your favorite coffee shop with Amy who is so kind, so unassuming–and yet so ridiculously talented.  

Amy’s 2024 short story collection, Sad Grownups, won the prestigious Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection.  The collection is wide-ranging, packed with women’s experiences, and haunting in its melancholy telling and perceptive understanding of modern American life. If you’ve ever seen a stranger on the street and wondered, what is their story?, this is the collection for you.  Amy’s imagination is rich and empathetic, and these characters will stay with you, long after you finish her luminous collection. 

We uncover so much in this conversation, including Amy’s literary influences, her inspirations, and why she believes short stories are the perfect fit for readers today. Along the way, some empty-nester secrets spring out of the vault, the Boss rides by with ghosts in his eyes, and we unmask a Joan Didion thief. 

REFERENCES:

If you are in the Lawrence, Kansas area, Amy would love for you to pick up her book at her favorite local bookstore, The Raven.  Support Amy’s local bookstore and  Buy Here!

The Pen America Literary Awards are considered the “Oscars” of books, so it’s hard to exaggerate what a big deal it is that Amy won it.  Get the whole scoop here, at the Pen Book Awards site. What we get from it is KANSAS. HAS. TALENT. 

Sonja and Vanessa go on a thrilling journey with Millennial reader and Romantasy fan/expert, Haley Bajorek.  If you’ve ever wondered what Romantasy is, why it has a huge fan base, whether it’s for you, and where to start, this episode fills in all the blanks!

For Gen X readers like Sonja and Vanessa who grew up on tales such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the focus of this episode, Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015) is a radical departure.  Dare we say a paradigm shift.  Forget moody men dressed up as fortune tellers by firelight–Haley helps us get our bearings in Romantasy worlds where giant wolf-lions turn out to be hot fairies who look like Chris Hemsworth…with pointy ears. and retractable claws. Biting might happen.  Riddles must be solved. Miles must be traveled.  And here we are (again!) talking about the female odyssey. Romantasy is a genre by women, for women, and very much a female community endeavor, and even if it’s not your cup of stars, Haley offers a bite-sized, juicy taste of this feminist branch of fantasy literature.

Along the way, we wish we had a harem, we get vertigo learning the practical implications of having a “mate,” and skulls and peppers become sign posts to new worlds.  

REFERENCES:

We could not have done this episode without the guidance and collaboration of our dear friend, Haley Bajorek, who often goes bravely where no man would go, and we are so lucky to be in her circle.  Thank you, Haley!

If you want to dip your toes into Romantasy, you can start with Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, like we did, and if you want to check out her whole universe, the Sarah J. Maas Website would be a good starting point.

If you are more in the mood for dragons, check out Rebecca Yarros's Website where love and battle take flight.

Welcome to our first episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”! 

We are proud to kick off this special author series with talented Kansas poet and veteran teacher, Melissa Fite Johnson.  You are in for a treat as Melissa’s warmth will make you feel welcome, and, like Sonja and Vanessa, you’ll be grateful for Melissa’s shrewd insights about life and writing.  

Melissa’s third collection, Midlife Abecedarian, is filled with nostalgia, self-discovery, and a wisdom that only comes through reflecting deeply on one’s younger self…or is it selves?  After she shares her poems on the show today, you’ll wonder why-oh-why you don’t already have this collection on your bedside table, right at the top of your TBR stack.  Melissa’s poetry is honest, precisely crafted, and nothing short of revelatory.  Plus, pop culture pulses through her verses.  In fact, if you remember what it was like to look for videos at a Blockbuster store, Melissa’s recollections of being a teen in the 1990's will feel like cozying up in your favorite oversized sweater. 

We discover so much in this conversation, including Melissa’s literary influences, her unique writing process, and why she believes poetry should be for everyone. Along the way, we blow kisses to a young Luke Perry in his white t-shirt, try to dress like So-Called Claire Danes, and Poetry and Pro Wrestling go on a date. 

REFERENCES:

Melissa loves her hometown bookstore, The Raven, right here in Lawrence, Kansas, so if you want to buy her book, she’d love it if you’d check them out.

Midlife Abecedarian is published by Riot in Your Throat Press.

Melissa Fite Johnson’s website is here.

First, you should rush to read Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests, a fantastic romance thriller set in 1922, post World War 1 England.  We don’t give spoilers, exactly, but the historical context we cover gives you some idea of events and situations that come up in the novel.  And the novel is wall-to-wall women’s issues:  society’s expectations of decorum, cooking, cleaning, birth control, wifely duties, sex, widowhood, spinsterhood, motherhood, and a fair amount about 1920's housekeeping.  

Sonja helps us understand the economic state of the UK after WW1, women’s voting rights, early attempts at family planning, abortion law and practices, and whether there were laws about lesbians.   

Along the way, we find out some people (not female people, mind you) once believed that robust menstruation was a sign of good health, and we learn that “servants don’t organize themselves,” while someone dramatic dons a dress made entirely of jewels.

REFERENCES

We reference other IWAW episodes here:  S3E1 on Tristan & Iseult; S3E on Romeo & Juliet; and the reference to the “ritual death” is from our episode on Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure. 

Sarah Waters has written several novels during her very successful career, and you can find out more about her at her website.

The biography that Sonja mentions is Vera Britain’s Testament of Youth, which is still in print, and if you want an overview of her life, this article from The Guardian offers a quick insight.

Marie Stopes’s 1918 work, Married Love, can be found at Project Gutenberg.

Here’s a great essay about the fear that lesbians were taking over Britain after World War 1:  "The Cult of the Clitoris": Sexual Panics and the First World War

Check out Maude Allen in her jewels-only dress as Salome.

Here’s a 2024 article from The Guardian, that hits the high points of the Edith Thompson and Freddie Bywaters's Trial, plus how even a hundred years later, Edith’s heirs are trying to clear her name.  

Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 A Farewell to Arms is almost always captioned as a tragic romance.  Is it?  Tragic, yes.  Romance…debatable.  Is Frederick Henry a compelling romantic hero and Catherine Barkley an inspiring romantic heroine?  Join Sonja and Vanessa as they run through the text (SPOILER ALERT), and give their verdict on the love story.

This show will also offer you a mini Hemingway bio, an explanation of his writing philosophy and style, and it highlights distinctions between warfare on the Western and Italian Fronts in World War 1.  Vanessa also shares an overview of feminist literary critics’ takes on Hemingway’s treatment of Catherine–both supportive and disapproving.

Along the way, we discover how Catherine Barkley feels about rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms; we bump up against old-man-doctor theories, claiming the benefits of “good” alcohol during pregnancy, and stale Cheetos--of course--make a cameo. 

REFERENCES:

Other Episodes of IWAW are mentioned:  the reference to Tristan and Iseult is explained in IWAW S3E1; the reference to Elly and Gaunt and Paul Fussell (author of The Great War and Modern Memory) are explained in our episode on Alice Winn’s novel, In Memoriam, IWAW S3E8; to learn more about Romeo as a romantic hero, check out our 3-part series on Romeo and Juliet that starts with IWAW S3E2; Colin Eversea is the hero of Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure, covered in IWAW S3E7; and the reference to Esther in Sarah Water’s The Paying Guests links to our next show, that drops on Friday, 8/22/25.  Stay tuned!

Here is a link to Ernest Hemingway’s essay, "The Art of the Short Story" from 1959.

CORRECTION:  The quote from Hemingway in which he mentions raisin bread is actually from a 1954 TIME Magazine interview that can be found here.

The audio of Hemingway's Nobel Prize Speech is a quick listen, in case you are interested, and it focuses mostly on the loneliness of a writer’s life.

Sonja and Vanessa LOVE Alice Winn’s 2024 novel, In Memoriam, a moving love story of two soldiers fighting on the fabled Western Front in World War 1.  Winn nimbly weaves numerous, real historical events through the friends-to-lovers romance of two teens who fight bravely for their country but have to keep their love secret from that very government–on pain of death.

Our goal in this episode is not to summarize or spoil the novel, but rather to act as a useful companion to the text.  You could listen to it before, during, or after reading the book. Most of us know more about WW2 than WW1, and when we encounter historical novels, we often wonder, “how much of this really happened?”  Our episode hopes to offer a larger historical context and flesh out some details that Winn mentions briefly in the narrative, character dialogue, and setting descriptions.   

Can you read and enjoy this novel without knowing more about WW1?  ABSOLUTELY.  Winn never lets you feel lost or confused, but if you are a fellow historically-curious reader, we’ve done a little homework for you. So relax and enjoy the research! 

Along the way, Sonja politely describes how early 20th century European royalty were one big, um, family, followed shortly after by Vanessa explaining feathers as weapons. 

REFERENCES:

Do yourself a huge favor and pick up a copy of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam.

Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory was a landmark study of the impact of World War 1 on our fundamental understanding of the world, of war, of trust in government, leading to the modern sense of alienation and fragmentation.

George Orwell’s essay “Such, Such Were the Joys,” published posthumously in 1952 describes his youthful experience at an elite all-boys boarding school as a "world of force and fraud and secrecy." 

Is Gaunt “a Darcy”? refers to the main argument of Dr. Rachel Feder’s brilliant work, The Darcy Myth (IWAW covers it in Season 3, Episode 6)

Margaret MacMillan's insightful essay, "The Rhyme of History: The Lessons of the Great War"  can be read here

The history podcasts mentioned in the show are The Rest is History, History that Doesn’t Suck, and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series “Blueprint to Armageddon” that can be purchased directly from his site, dancarlin.com

FURTHER READING SUGGESTIONS ON WW1:

Now it Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs is a reporters description of WW1 after the war when he could finally tell what he really witnessed because government censorship (on all sides) made that impossible during the conflict. It can be purchased here.

If you are curious how the war happened, Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers is very accessible to the nonhistorian reader.

Barbara Tuchman’s 1963 Pulitzer Prize-winning account, The Guns of August vividly portrays the sheer scale and violence of the opening of the war. 

Sonja and Vanessa dip into a wonderful historical romance novel by Julie Ann Long, The Perils of Pleasure, Book 1 of 11 in her marvelous Pennyroyal Green series.  We set up the first three chapters, but that’s just the premise of the book, and there are no spoilers.  We discuss the literary lineage of regency romance novels, like this one, both to Pride and Prejudice and even to Tristan & Iseult.   

Sonja brings up some thought-provoking questions worth considering:  What is the specific appeal of “Regency” romances? Are there essential elements that any good romance novel must contain?  Is it disempowering to women to read romance novels?  

Along the way, we find out that Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet share a crucial life moment, Vanessa finally learns what a “plot moppet” is, and Sonja discovers that she needs to write a Regency, Amish, vampire romance novel.

REFERENCES

Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure can be purchased here.

Julie Ann Long has a website that gives a good sense of her whole (very impressive) body of work.

A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis can be purchased here.  This was such a great resource!  If you love romance novels, you would find Regis’s study fascinating.  

And check out the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Website.  Savvy and fun!

If you like your literature with a side of pop culture, you’ll love what’s on the menu for today: Rachel Feder’s clever & informative study, The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs, and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love (2023).  Let’s face it, whether or not we have read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and whether we love or hate it, Lizzie and Mr. Darcy’s love story has had a massive influence on our culture, specifically in terms of how straight women view the “story” of love and envision their “ideal” guy.

Sonja and Vanessa examine the main argument of Rachel Feder’s thoroughly entertaining exploration of our collective love for Mr. Darcy.  Feder asks an important question:  what effect has loving Mr. Darcy in fiction had on our real lives? Is Feder right that we might have taken the fantasy too far?  

This episode is for you if you have ever met a woman (or been a woman…) who is dating a guy that everyone else thinks is a jerk, but YOU understand him, and YOU know he’ll change, and YOU are willing to do the work to transform him. If this sounds eerily familiar, then Rachel Feder’s insightful book might help you understand the psychology at work, and this episode will (hopefully) sell you on checking out or (better yet) buying The Darcy Myth.

Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa brush up against the possibility that Longbourne is a haunted house, once again find themselves circling back to questions about female odysseys, and–quite innocently–find themselves porn adjacent. 

REFERENCES

Check out Rachel Feder's Website for a list of all her works, including her newest book, Taylor Swift By the Book:  The Literature Behind the Lyrics, from Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets (2024), co-authored with Tiffany Tatreau

Marriage: a History by Stephanie Coontz can be purchased here.

For a deep dive into Jane Eyre, check out On Eyre, a special series from Hot and Bothered Podcast, hosted by Vanessa Zoltan & Lauren Sandler.

The mention of virginity as a “fettish” is in Virginia Woolf’s collection of lectures, A Room of One’s Own, specifically in the section entitled, “If Shakespeare Had a Sister.” You can purchase the entire volume, or there are many pdf versions of the “If Shakespeare Had a Sister” section, like this one from the University of Minnesota @ Duluth.

The mention of Clarissa and Pamela are to two novels by 18th century novelist, Samuel Richardson.  Our 5th episode of season 3 is actually about Pamela (1740), and if you’d rather not read it but would still like to know about it, you will find that episode very helpful and fun.  We have not read Clarissa…yet?...it’s about 1,500 pages, so no promises…

Please Note:  The internet was not playing nice on the day we interviewed Polly, and though we tried several strategies, we could not totally resolve some technical difficulties.  That being said, as you listen, you’ll hear that Polly’s warm authenticity and her lovely personality just totally outshine the tech issues.  

No woman totally escapes the fact that she lives in a body made for making other humans.  Whether she wants to have kids or not, her body and the society she lives have agendas. Polly Rosenwaike’s moving collection, LOOK HOW HAPPY I’M MAKING YOU, explores the challenges of deciding whether to become a mother, the obstacles to becoming a mother, and the the learning curve of adapting to motherhood.

Named one of the Best Books of 2019 by Kirkus Review, Glamour, and an Editor’s Pick on Amazon, Rosenwaike’s empathetic and beautifully-written collection offers a window into the lives of a dozen women who couldn’t know what awaited them, from trying to get pregnant and stay pregnant, to the hard-earned lessons of what day-to-day mothering involves for each of them.

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they ask Polly about her creative process, how she came up with the concept of the collection, the nitty gritty of working with an editor, what she thinks of first when she writes, how she chose the collection’s clever title, and her literary influences. As we do with all our visiting writers, we ask Polly about a story that shaped her, and we just loved what she shared–you won’t want to miss it!

Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa cast themselves back into the misty past, reminiscing about pregnancy and shiny-new motherhood, and Vanessa confesses that she sucked at breastfeeding. 

REFERENCES:
If you do not have a favorite local bookstore, remember that you can always order online from Lawrence Kansas’s beloved bookseller, The Raven Bookstore.  Here is a link to Polly Rosenwaike’s LOOK HOW HAPPY I'M MAKING YOU.

Sonja and Vanessa have read a 500 page novel for you (or a measly 400 pages, depending on which edition you read).  You’re welcome! 

It’s about a 15 year old girl named Pamela, who is the most beautiful woman on earth (according to everyone in the novel), and she’s a servant girl who is “accomplished” (in Pride and Prejudice fashion…even to the extent that everyone marvels at how well she carves a chicken–now that’s an accomplished young lady, dear listeners).  Pamela finds herself the lust-and-later-love object of her decade-older employer, Mr. B—-, and there are comical cross-dressing scenes, hidden letters, mugged parsons, and our “poor, dear Pamela” jumps out of at least one window.

Come along for this entertaining romp through this famous early novel that was the first English BEST SELLER in history, consider the ideas threading through it that are (sadly) still very much with us today, and the surprising prequel vibe it has for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen might have perfected the enemies-to-lovers plot…but she didn’t invent it, and here’s a book she for sure read.  See what you think!

Along the way, we meet a “scribbling” woman (over a hundred years before Nathaniel Hawthorne coined the expression), link The Breakfast Club to 18th century literature, and Sonja and Vanessa wonder why they didn’t just call the podcast “Idle Sluts in the House.” 

REFERENCES

Dr. Octavia Cox, of Oxford University, has several wonderful educational videos about 18th century literature, and this one on the success of Pamela in 1740 is incredibly informative with helpful visuals.

More information on Dr. Octavia Cox can be found here.

Here is a picture of the original title page of Samuel Richardson’s novel, Pamela.

Here is a picture of the original title page of Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, 1722.

Tate Museum's 4 Paintings by Joseph Highmore of scenes from Pamela, including Mr. B– disguised as a drunk maid sitting in a corner, spying on Pamela as she undresses.

Gaze here upon the portrait of Samuel Richardson that Vanessa printed out and framed to have before us in the studio as the pod was recorded so we remembered to be kind to Sam.

This episode focuses on acts 3-5 of Romeo and Juliet. Our spotlight is on Juliet because, when you read the original play, it’s hard not to think that Juliet DESERVES more of the spotlight than most directors share with her. 

Hear about many moments and lines that often don’t make it into productions of the play or feature films.  What does that do to our perception of Juliet?  Doesn’t it, inevitably, distort her?  In Acts 3-5, Juliet lies, shows her strong acting skills, reasons out strategies, longs to have sex with Romeo for about 30 lines, makes jokes (some of them naughty) while in tears and fools her mother, demonstrates clear understanding of theological tenants, and displays masterful rhetorical skills in evading detection with her fiance, Paris.  Is this the Juliet you think you’ve seen on stage and screen?  If not, you’ll enjoy the inside view we offer into the full scope of Juliet’s talents, and you might be tempted to ask this: Is it okay to cut all or most of Juliet’s lines?  

Along the way, we talk to daggers, we defend the human rights of drug dealers, and we find out that Juliet actually wakes up to discover THREE dead men around her tomb.  

We are using the Yale Press version of Romeo and Juliet, editor Burton Raffel, 2004. 

2014 Live Production of Romeo and Juliet starring Condala Rashad as Juliet and Orlando Bloom as Juliet. 

Vanessa and Sonja are taking a break this week, but fear not -- there are more subscribers-only episodes on Patreon! Find us at patreon.com/InWalksAWoman

In this second episode in the series, Sonja and Vanessa travel through the play, keeping a sharp eye on Juliet.  Is Juliet as demure as many stage performances make her seem?  Romeo makes the first move at the party, but by the end of the night, is he the one in charge of the relationship?  And let’s really consider what’s said in the famously “romantic” balcony scene…how much of it really fits the term “romantic”?  The answers to many of these questions will likely surprise you.

Along the way, we learn about the joys of nursing--including a clever trick for weaning your baby--and we let Mercutio school us on why you hope a fairy, dashing about in an empty hazelnut-shell carriage, does not make her way into your bedroom at night. 

We are using the Yale Press version of Romeo and Juliet, editor Burton Raffel, 2004.

To watch the courtly love story in action, Romeo and Juliet seems like the best place to start.

In the first of a 3-part series, Sonja and Vanessa offer helpful historical and literary foundations that help us read/understand the play.  Learn about original source material, Renaissance Italian government, marriage practices, and why, in William Shakespeare’s acting company, Juliet would have been played by a young man.  After explaining why all shirts that say “Shakespeare was a plagiarist” should be burned, Vanessa offers some insights on how Shakespeare made the story very much his own…so much so that it is–far and away–the most read/performed/known version of the story.

If you read the play in high school or if you have never read it, this break down of the play will remind you of what you forgot–and might even explain some things you never knew.  Keep in mind that Romeo and Juliet is the Shakespeare play with the most sexual references of any of his plays…and many American high schools teach censored/abbreviated versions, so you might find out the play was a little different than you thought.  

Along the way, we find out that the original Juliet has a very original way to end her life, someone is famous for having cold hands, and men have fun, pointing pointy objects around.

REFERENCES:

We are using the Yale Press version of Romeo and Juliet, editor Burton Raffel, 2004. 

Vanessa is on the search for the original article she read years ago arguing that boy players were used on the English Renaissance stage not because it was illegal for women to perform, but rather because of the male guild system. 

If you want to check out Luigi da Porto's 1540 version of Romeo and Juliet, this is an easy to read online copy (Italian and English parallel texts, no less).

If you are interested in learning more from world-renowned Shakespeare scholar, Stephen Greenblatt, you could start with his famed volume, Renaissance Self Fashioning that is a classic in the field of Early Modern studies both in terms of history and literary criticism.  He also has a wonderfully accessible biography of Shakespeare, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.

For the story on how two of Shakespeare’s friends saved many of his plays from being lost, seven years after his death, this is a highly-readable, relatively brief story of their work to gather the quarto editions of the plays, publish the plays, and how the Folger Library in DC would not exist if not for the First Folio:  The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World by Paul Collins

What if romantic love is just a story we made up? Looking back at the origins of courtly love, it looks like we might have. 

Sonja takes us back to the Middle Ages and explains how, in an attempt to control a particular problem, society might have created a story that still echoes today.  This is the story that, on one hand, animates beloved romcoms, while on the other hand, forges die-hard Valentine’s Day haters.  As an illustration of this story in action, Sonja takes Vanessa through a wonderful retelling of one of literature’s most influential courtly love stories:  the tale of Tristan and Iseult.  

If you’ve ever wondered why society seems to put such a high value on romantic love or have sensed something dark and unsettling lurking in the storyline, then you’ll be interested to hear how it all got started.  Along the way, we find out that all boats should have harps in their First Aid kids, boots are handy for storing body parts, and sometimes your ex and your wife have the same name.  Because of the wildness of the Tristan and Iseult tale, this will be the first Explicit episode of In Walks a Woman, so if you are listening with kiddos in the backseat, you might wait until you drop them off at school.  

REFERENCES:

The Romance of Tristan & Iseult by J. Bedier & translated by Hilaire Belloc can be purchased here.

Love in the Western World by Denis de Rougemont can be purchased here new or here used.

If you’ve ever felt you should read Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, but shortly after starting, found your resolve fading…this is the episode for you!  Sonja commandingly takes the literary wheel and unpacks this intricate novel by illuminating its structure, major themes, and fills in some of the philosophical underpinnings that Shelley explores.  Aside from sharing some childhood Goethe trauma, Vanessa just puts up her feet and enjoys the show.  You, too, will love having the novel broken down for you, whether you have read it, hope to read it, or read it and hope to understand it better.   

At the dawn of the 1800’s, Frankenstein was conceived and executed by a ferociously bright young woman (18 years old when she starts writing it and 19 when she finishes) and her literary creation has rippled beyond her native England to the entire world as a symbol of the dangers of science, thoughtless creation, the importance of community…and our concept of the monstrous both in body and in deed.  Victor “births” a creature–just to see if he can–and his egotistical deed haunts the creature, Victor’s family and friends, and himself, unto death.

Along the way, get some tips on how to read by spying on a family in their cottage home, travel to the uninhabited Arctic looking for a bff, learn how convenient it is to have a beautiful 1st cousin willing to marry you, and marvel at how a self-obsessed young man manages to destroy everyone he loves. Regardless of the huge historical and cultural influence, Shelley’s novel is a great story!

In the Show Notes this week, find links to several overviews of writers, ideas, and other novels that Sonja and Vanessa touch on as they explore Frankenstein.  

REFERENCES:

Link to National Theater Production of Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Monster

There are many good editions of the 1818 edition of Frankenstein, and we were using the Broadview Press edition that is available for purchase through the publisher or second hand on many used book websites.  In addition to the text, it contains several very helpful critical articles and helps one understand the influence of Mary Shelley’s two literary parents on her work.

Here is an overview of the Romantic Period from Eastern Connecticut State University that covers the main ideas and notes key writers of both poetry and prose that can give you a good sense of who else to read if you are interested in this time period.

Thought Co article on Gothic Literature would be a good starting point if you hear the word “gothic” and are not sure what it means. 

If you want an intro to the ideas of Edmund Burke, you might start here on the Great Thinkers website.

We also mentioned Harriet Lerner’s renowned classic, The Dance of Anger.  This and Lerner’s other insightful works are available through the Harriet Lerner Website.  So worth checking out!

This Smithsonian article explains Galvanism, in case you want to create your own monster (Frankenstein is referenced in this article), or if–as Sonja noted–you just want to animate a noodle.  (We all have different goals in life.) 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers an overview of Rousseau’s life and explains how he develops his theory that humanity is basically good but corrupted by society.  

Other Works Mentioned:  The links here are to our favorite local bookstore, The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence Kansas, and they can ship anywhere!  Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes and Johann Wolfgang von Geothe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther

The Royal Society of Chemistry has a quick overview of the principles of alchemy here.  If you end up making gold out of lead, please do send us a nugget to support the podcast.

Good witches and ever-loyal Kansans, Sonja and Vanessa, consider a fresh reading of the widely acknowledged “American Fairy Tale,” The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Written in 1900 by L. Frank Baum, and later made into an internationally-influential and dearly-beloved film in 1939, we ask what message Dorothy’s story sends to female viewers/readers.  

Let’s start with this interesting aspect: Dorothy is on an odyssey (as our discussions in IWAW Season 1 suggest), but she sure doesn’t want to be on it!  Dorothy Gale almost instantly aches to return to bleak Kansas, her home, and entertains very little curiosity for the magical land in which she finds herself. In essence, Dorothy falls into an adventure with--noticeably--no sense of adventure. Why? She keeps saying there’s no place like home, but is that the same as saying home is a good place?

Vanessa tries valiantly to convince Sonja that we might even have a motherhood theme at work in a novel with no moms.  Does she succeed? Tune in for a fresh perspective, provocative questions, and a great appreciation for this rich story that we never tire of, truly in the way of fairy tales.  It’s worth noting that while J. R. Tolkien purposely created an English epic and mythology, L. Frank Baum just wanted to make a fun story for children with no moralizing purpose…and the result was a tale that has organically become THE American fairy tale.  

If you’ve ever wondered how the book and movie differ, would like to know more about the man who made every convenience store in Kansas sell Oz merch, you’ll love this episode.  Plus, if you’re up for looking at a classic novel and movie in a new way, thinking about stories that say things maybe they did not intend–and maybe we were not expecting–then this is a great episode for you.  Like it or not, the Oz story has shaped our lives, and it’s fascinating to reflect on how it has shaped us.  

REFERENCES:

In Walks a Woman podcast  is proud to record at the Lawrence Public Library, in Lawrence, Kansas.

If you are interested in a beautifully-illustrated edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, check out the Centennial Edition in paperback by the University of Kansas Press.

For more information on the 1893 Columbian World Fair in Chicago with the “white city” that inspired the Emerald City, check out this article with photos from the Chicago Architecture Center.

If you doubt that admiration for Baum and Oz are still alive in the 21st century, check out the International Wizard of Oz Club.

For more information on L. Frank Baum’s mother-in-law, Matilda Gage, check out this great Smithsonian article:  "The Feminist Who Inspired the Witches of Oz".

Link to prints of the Land of Oz Map, as described in the show.

Check out this cool article on W.W. Denslow's Illustrations for the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from 1900, with many sample illustrations.

Sonja and Vanessa consider TV moms who inspired American women in the 80’s and 90’s.  Given the warm response to our pop culture episode in our first season (S1E10: “Madonna, Maggie, Diana, Cyndi & Sinead–Gen X Heroines”), we were excited to review some fictional moms from our youth.

Clair Huxtable of the Cosby Show, demonstrated how to raise five children, while looking fashionable and gorgeous, exuding educated elegance, wit, and feminist passion.  Rosanne Conner, tutored us in unapologetic snark for Reagan era policies that left her working-class family forgotten in the dust.  Rosanne raises 3 kids on part time jobs with intelligence, savvy, and resilience that lets laughter ring out defiantly in her home–every single day. Finally, the most long-lasting TV mom, Marge Simpson, in a nutshell, probably deserves sainthood. Marge is both a satire and a loving salute to pearl-wearing housewives of yesteryear.  Let’s just say that June Cleaver never faced the challenges Marge does.  What other TV mom can hold a candle to Marge’s 36-season (and counting) optimism, ingenuity, and long-suffering patience?  

We look at all three characters as mothers whose stories partly shaped what we hoped we’d be as mothers.  Why did they make an impression on us? What did their stories leave us expecting when we were expecting?  And were these stories on the mark?  Were any parts of the stories ultimately misleading or unhelpful?  As we pursue these queries, Sonja shares a secret about bra burning, and Vanessa (tries) to sing the Enjoli commercial song.  

REFERENCES:

NPR's Fresh Air Interview about the documentary We Need to Talk about Cosby

Article from Slate in 2014 about Clair Huxtable:  The Other Huxtable Effect 

2018 Article about Rosanne in Meanjin Online:  When Capitalism Saves Us from Ourselves

In our second half of Shirley Jackson’s biography,* we pick up in 1939 when Shirley is about to marry Stanley, and for a full portrait of Stanley, you’ll absolutely want to check out S2E7 “The Very Haunted Life of Shirley Jackson.”  Again, as we highlight in the show notes for the previous episode, this episode is only made possible by the scholarship of Jackson biographer, Ruth Franklin. We have drawn primarily on Franklin’s 2016 biography of Shirley Jackson, A Very Haunted Life, and we highly recommend it as thorough, thoughtful, and engaging.  If you love Jackson or if you are interested in what 1950’s life was like for women and female artists, get your hands on Franklin’s marvelous book! 

In this episode, for Jackson, children and books start coming along at about equal intervals in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, and then we really get to see a woman writing full time, while also being an attentive mother, a loyal wife + maid, cook, and laundress.  Hear about how Jackson manages this challenge admirably, in a time when neither her husband, nor her parents, nor her society offered her any physical or emotional support.  

As they review Shirley Jackson’s adult life with a focus on motherhood, Sonja and Vanessa pause to give special attention to Jackson’s 1953 family memoir, Life Among the Savages, about raising her 4 children.  It’s brilliant.  Add to that, it’s hard not to marvel at a writer who masters nonfiction humor writing AND also writes fictional horror at a level that makes her one of Stephen King’s greatest influences. Jackson’s Life Among the Savages takes us on a jolly journey through 1950’s America, where parenting requires ashtrays and no child car seats.  

Shirley Jackson’s life was short, and packed into it are all the forces arrayed against mid-century American women–the constraints of maintaining a home, the unquestioned deference to husbands, the constant pressure to be feminine and slim, all alongside a very human desire to pursue what your mind and spirit need… and if that need happens to be writing, in the 1950’s, you probably have to wait for your husband to allow you a turn at the typewriter.   

*CORRECTION: In this episode, Vanessa says that Jackson was not physically well enough to attend the Haunting of Hill House movie premier, but what she should have said is that Jackson did attend, but just barely, and Stanley had to accompany her. Apologies for this factual inaccuracy.

REFERENCES:

Ruth Franklin's biography:  A Very Haunted Life

Goodreads Review of Life Among the Savages

Spoilers…but hey, if you don’t know what TWILIGHT is, come out from the rock you call home and join us for a lively and insightful conversation with our special guest, Dr. Giselle Anatol, editor of the 2011 collection of critical essays, BRINGING LIGHT TO TWILIGHT. Dr. Anatol has provided popular texts and the legacy of the vampire important scholarly attention, and we’re incredibly lucky to have her in the studio to talk about the attraction and cultural influence of the TWILIGHT series. 

Don’t worry, we’re not cancelling Stephenie Meyer’s TWILIGHT because, dear listener, that’s just not how we roll on IWAW.  What Sonja and Vanessa love is exercising intellectual curiosity.  And this text brings up so many questions! For starters, can you both love TWILIGHT and be a feminist? How much Jane Eyre is there in Bella Swan? Is Carlisle actually a mother? Is Meyer drawing on works like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, ROMEO AND JULIET, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, and WUTHERING HEIGHTS?  Would the sparkling vampire series make a young, modern reader want to go read these classics? What are we to make of the novel linking Native Americans to wolves?  Is Bella’s life-threatening pregnancy a commentary on abortion? What role does Meyer’s Mormon faith contribute to the focus on chastity, male power, championing motherhood, the imprinting and immortality of lovers?  

With the world-wide appeal of the 4-book and 5-movie series, we really have to ask these questions because–as we always say on IWAW–stories shape who we are.  Just to point out the obvious, what message does Bella and Edward’s romance, for example, communicate to a young reader about how love works, who to date, and what kind of risks to take? Can a young reader–the target audience of this series–always discern the line between fiction and reality?

ALSO, on this episode, we announce the theme of Season 5, the first season of 2026–our second year of the pod!!!

Along the way, Sonja bed rots, TWILIGHT-style, and Vanessa, a TWILIGHT fan of old, weathers Sonja’s wordplay about how much the series sucks.

REFERENCES:

Here is Dr. Gisele Anatol’s biographical information on the University of Kansas English Department website. 

A link to Dr. Anatol’s 2015 Things that Fly in the Night

If you feel like checking out some of the fascinating articles in Dr. Anatol’s collection, here is a link to purchasing Bringing Light to Twilight

Here is a link to purchase Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature by Janice A. Radway.

Once again, we cannot say enough good things about Rachel Fader’s The Darcy Myth, and we also have a great episode on it: Rachel Feder's The Darcy Myth.

Check out Hot and Bothered Podcast: Twilight for a take on the movie by the extremely talented Vanessa Zoltan & Hannah McGregor. 

If you want to know more about the Soucouyant that Dr. Anatol mentions, here is one of many websites with information: The Soucouyant.

Shirley Jackson, one of America’s greatest writers, was also a mother of 4 children in the 1950’s, and she worked from home writing, cooking, writing, nursing sick kids, writing, doing laundry, writing, shopping, writing, going to parent-teacher conferences, and also taking care of her husband Stanley, who was a legendary college professor but who was so incapable of adulting that his two daughters had to come take care of him after Shirley died because he didn’t even know how to make himself a cup of coffee.

We bring you this episode in large part thanks to the careful, thorough, and passionate scholarship of biographer Ruth Franklin and her brilliantly-written 2016 biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.  We knew we had to include Shirley Jackson in our season on motherhood because of how much Shirley’s own mother impacted her life and what a heroic feat of organization, love, hard work, and humor she brought to the act of birthing and raising 4 children while birthing and seeing to publication over 200 short stories, 2 best-selling memoirs, and 6 novels.  Within those works lie some of the most probing studies of female characters trying to literally maintain their sanity–with varying degrees of success–in a society that wants them to be college-educated housewives who work like unpaid servants but who do it all cheerfully in high heels and wearing pearls.  

Part 1 covers Jackson’s life from her birth in 1916 to the late 1930’s, in her college years when she meets Stanley Hyman who will be both her greatest champion and the source of her deep sense of abandonment.  Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa brush up against Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the happily-very-rarely used term, “transcendental groin.”  

REFERENCES:

Ruth Franklin's Shirley Jackson: A Very Haunted Life

A brief overview of Betty Friedan's life & main argument of The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Ruth Franklin’s biography of Jackson contains several of Jackson’s cartoons, but this Washington Post article also includes a couple showing Jackson’s satirization of her lounging husband, in the midst of her non-stop work as a full-time homemaker & writer who, eventually, made more money than he did.  

Ruth Franklin’s scholarship goes far beyond her 2016 biography of Jackson:  check out Ruth Franklin's Website!

Mother knows best, the old saying goes. But what if your mother is constantly trying to ship you with strange, rich men?  Believe it or not, if you’re in England, circa 1800, having such a mum might have its upsides. 

Sonja and Vanessa offer a lively run-through of Pride and Prejudice with an eye on the character who, in terms of dialogue, speaks second-only to Miss Elizabeth Bennet herself. (No, it’s not Mr. Darcy.)  It’s Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Bennet, who talks her way into second place with gossip, scheming, and fashion advice.  And yet, we pose the question of whether this mother–universally acknowledged as silly–may also be wise.  In this classic novel’s playfully astute look at patriarchy’s true ridiculousness, we spotlight Mrs. Bennet, wondering if, perhaps, she may be the marriage game’s MVP. 

Along the way, Sonja indulges in a bit of Lady Catherine worship, and Vanessa mixes up her balls, and together they offer at least a couple of fresh insights into the world’s ongoing obsession with Pride and Prejudice, a novel merely attributed to the nameless  “Author of Sense and Sensibility” when published that has, nonetheless, cast the shadow of a giant across the landscape of the literary world, over two hundred years later. 

REFERENCES:

Jo Baker's novel, Longbourne

Live from Pemberley, Season 4 Hot & Bothered Podcast

Ben Fensom, lip synch PP miniseries from the 90's

@somebenfen (on Instagram)

In so many ways, Toni Morrison expanded the reaches of our cultural imagination both in terms of understanding our history and exploring the intricate landscape of the human psyche through language.  Beloved, Morrison’s 1987 masterpiece, alternates settings between 1850’s Kentucky and 1870’s Ohio, depicting Sethe, protagonist and former slave, isolated and dealing with trying to live on after the scarring trauma of slavery.  She finds herself feeling, for instance, the complicated nostalgia for the beautiful trees of the plantation where she grew up…while those very trees were used to hang black men she knew.  The reader recognizes the truth of this feeling, while reeling at the profoundly unresolvable conflict it creates for Sethe. Morrison takes on these painful paradoxes, including the desire of a mother to protect her children…at any cost.  And then, that same mother has to live with the cost as a personal regret, when the faceless structures of an evil institution made her choice necessary. 

Sonja and Vanessa consider how Morrison puts a mother, Sethe, at the center of her meditation on historical shadows, collective trauma, grief, memory, regret, and loss of self through Sethe’s story.  Sonja offers clear, helpful historical context for the American prewar period of the 1850’s and also Reconstruction, in the 1870’s.  Vanessa gives an overview of the plot, and there are spoilers, but nothing can detract from the immersive experience it is to read Morrison’s lyrical prose, so–even after listening to this episode– readers can absolutely enjoy the novel for the first time or the fiftieth.

Please be advised  that Morrison’s novel deals with violence, including infanticide, and the episode discusses these aspects of the novel, so it might not be a good fit for all listeners.

REFERENCES:

The Black Book, Edited by Toni Morrison

Text of The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Yale Law School Library

12 Years a Slave, Publisher's Website

Dred Scott Case / National Archives

Text of the 13th Amendment,  Congress.gov

Text of the 14th Amendment, Congress.gov

Text of the 15th Amendment, Congress.gove

Historical Context of the film, Birth of a Nation

Info on 1989 film Field of Dreams

Information on Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, HBStowe Foundation Site

Uncle Tom's Cabin, novel for purchase

Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Water Dancer, novel for purchase

Julie Otsuka's Buddha in the Attic, novel for purchase

Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, play for purchase in English

Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, novel for purchase

Sonja and Vanessa explore Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel, To the Lighthouse with a focus on Mrs. Ramsay, one of the great mums of British literature. As a happy coincidence, Sonja’s daughter, Sage McHenry, was in town for the episode recording, and Sage offers her Gen Z-reader thoughts on the classic novel. To the Lighthouse, while not strictly autobiographical, has clear links to Woolf’s own life experience, particularly her memories of her parents.  We start off with a look at Woolf’s childhood and formative experiences, her education, her own thoughts on whether to become a mother, and her life-long struggles to maintain mental stability.  Please note that that this episode does discuss child sexual abuse.  

From there, we examine the 3 parts of the novel:  “The Window,” all about the day that starts with little James telling his mother, Mrs. Ramsay, that he wants to go to the lighthouse and ends with a dinner where the whole family and all their guests connect emotionally after a delicious meal.  Despite Mrs. Ramsay’s hopefulness that the lighthouse visit will happen the next day, the weather shifts, and the trip does not happen.  In the second part, “Time Passes,” the house lies empty and begins falling apart, World War 1 rages, we are parenthetically told of several deaths in the family–including that of Mrs. Ramsay.  Finally, in the third part, “The Lighthouse,” the trip that had not happened in childhood, finally happens, but only Mr. Ramsay, James, and Cam are left, and they note the absence of a mother who was able to create an emotional web among all her loved ones.   

Join Sonja and Vanessa as they reflect on the many ideas the novel considers:  women acting as mirrors for male confidence, the contrast of a woman choosing to create art vs. a woman creating family, motherhood as unappreciated creative work, the idea of male and female in a sort of cosmic balance, nostalgia, the ephemeral nature of childhood and community, and Woolf’s clear admiration for of one woman’s power to use her emotional intelligence to connect a diverse group of people into a harmonious community–if only for a day.  

REFERENCES 

Emma Woolf, great niece of Virginia Woolf, article that explains why Virginia didn't become a mother herself:

https://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/27/joyful-gossipy-and-absurd-private-life-virginia-woolf-306438.html

Nino Strachey's Young Bloomsbury: he Generation That Redefined Love, Freedom, and Self-Expression in 1920s England

Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own

Emily Dickinson's poem, "Tell All the Truth" 

Peter Pan pdf illustrated edition with picture of Wendy on the 2 "tombstone"

Dylan Thomas's poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night"

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf, bio info

Sonja and Vanessa are thrilled to welcome Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, an international scholar on Federico Garcia Lorca, to explore the theme of motherhood in Lorca’s 1934 play, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba, the masterpiece Lorca finished writing just two months before he was assassinated by Spanish fascists in August 1936. Disappeared by Franco's Falange forces at age 38, Lorca never saw Bernarda performed. Both plays question the expectations and limits traditional society puts on women in terms of sexuality, marriage, and motherhood.  Yerma lyrically portrays a wife who cannot conceive, trying to figure out what purpose she serves without motherhood...she asks if she is even a woman. In Bernarda Alba, Lorca forges a crucible within the walls of a locked house, in a Spanish village, at the height of a sizzling Andalusian summer, in which five young women live, caged by religious mores, fears of gossip, patriarchal traditions, and the demands of their own sexual desires.  Bernarda–their own mother–appoints herself their jailer, and with cruel words and a walking-cane-cum-blunt-weapon, Bernarda dominates her daughters, her servants--even her own octogenarian mother.  Dr. Jonathan Mayhew explains and offers insights on crucial textual elements, plus he fills in key information about Lorca’s biography and the complicated political landscape of 1930’s Spain, in the lead up to the Spanish Civil War.  This episode showcases all the elements we value on In Walks a Woman:  scholarship, history, enduring literature, and women’s stories.  Treat yourself to an episode that examines a Spanish male writer who showcases passionate, powerful women in stories that refract larger social, religious, and political issues….many of which we are still negotiating in 2025.  

LINKS:

Jonathan Mayhew's 2020 book, Lorca's Legacies

Johnathan Mayhew's 2009 book, Apocryphal Lorca

2015 Presentation: Conversations in the Observatorio: Jonathan Mayhew. Lorca's Modernist Self-fashioning in collaboration with Harvard  Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Translation of Lorca's 3 Major Plays: Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba (Dr. Mayhew recommends this translation)

Spanish Text of Lorca's Bodas de Sangre, Yerma, La Casa de Bernarda Alba

There are absolutely online translations of Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba that are free, but the quality of the translation might vary. 

Sonja mentions the BBC version of The House of Bernarda Alba with Glenda Jackson as Bernarda and Joan Plowright as la Poncia, but sadly it does not appear to be available via streaming online.  You might have more luck at your local library or finding a used copy for sale.  It’s a brilliant production with two of the greatest British actresses ever.  Jackson passed away in 2023, and we just lost Plowright this January of 2025.  If you can find this performance with these two legends, it is SO worth watching! 

#lorca #garcialorca #federicogarcialorca #spanishcivilwar #womenintheater #bernardaalba #inwalksawoman

Vanessa and Sonja examine Julie Otuska’s completely original narrative style in her novel, The Buddha in the Attic (2011).  Vanessa grabs the historical student-driver wheel along with Sonja’s steady historical expertise to give you the story of Japanese immigration to the United States, the fascinating phenomenon of “Japanese Picture Brides” (OG catfishing?), the journey of women who leave their mothers and families in Japan to a country where they can only snag a foothold when they, the novel’s narrators, become the mothers of American citizens.  And then comes the bombing of Pearl Harbor…and all footholds are lost.  Buddha is like no other novel that has been written.  Why? Because it tries to capture the “kaleidoscopic” (Sonja’s perfect adjective!) of women experiencing sweeping cultural events, women who traditionally have no voices and remain forgotten by history.  What if all those women from the past could speak?  What if they could all reach out to us from history and share a moment of their life experience?  If they could, Julie Otsuka would be their medium, and the themes of motherhood and the cadence of poetry in Buddha would be their book.  

Julie Otsuka's Website

THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC for purchase from the publisher, Penguin Random House

WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE for purchase from publisher, Penguin Random House

Also Referenced in this Episode:

An novel that exemplifies the use of multiple first-person narrators:

WONDER by RJ Palacio, for purchase from the publisher, Penguin Random House

More Info on Japanese art that may be influences:

Kakemono History

Sumi / Japanese Ink Paintings

Sonja gives a tour de force presentation of Patriarchy's beginnings:  when, why, how, and what it replaced.  Was there Matriarchy before Patriarchy?  Sonja explains.  Why did humans go from one central Mother Goddess to a male god at the center of the pantheon of gods?  Sonja explains.  Is Patriarchy just how it is, or can it evolve into a less male-beneficial system?  Sonja explains!  In this detailed but very accessible historical explanation, you'll come away with a greater understanding of why both men and women in early civilizations morphed from more equal hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary patriarchal civilizations.  By the end of the episode, Sonja and Vanessa challenge the claim that Patriarchy is "natural," contending instead that it's actually just a fiction, a story...and as is the way with storytelling, can't we--both women and men--rewrite our story with a plot that puts all humans on more equal footing? Join us for this insightful historical overview that kicks off Season 2 of In Walks a Woman:  The Mother Goddess.

Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy

Sonja and Vanessa delve into recent history to ask if it’s even possible to be your own woman in a world that is designed and controlled by men?  Through the lens of five prominent women of the 1980’s and 90’s, IWAW asks if female odysseys are doomed to follow in the footsteps of–or be a reaction to–male expectations.  Sonja and Vanessa dip into stories of women in politics and pop culture to ask what these real-life heroines gained and lost on their journeys.  If you are a fan or contemporary of Madonna, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, Cyndi Lauper or Sinead O’Connor, this episode offers a probing conversation about the forces at work in the lives of women who decided to enter traditionally male institutions and put themselves in front of the unforgiving male gaze. 

Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Robber Bride (1998)

For Purchase @ Penguin Books

John Berger’s 4 Part BBC Documentary Series, Ways of Seeing (1971)

Ways of Seeing Series on You Tube

Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema” (1975)

Mulvey Article in PDF

Sinead O’Connor’s memoir, Rememberings (2021)

For Purchase @ Harper Collins

Allison McCabe’s Why Sinead O’Connor Matters (2024)

For Purchase @ University of Texas Press

Allison McCabe’s Website:  AllisonMcCabe.com

Legacy Season 8: Margaret Thatcher

Let the Canary Sing (documentary)

Sinead's 1989 Mandinka Performance

Sinead Protest on SNL & Rejection by Bob Dylan Fans a Few Weeks Later

Madonna's Material Girl Vid that is all shot through the male gaze of a rich guy trying to go out with her...and succeeding

Article on the Diana Sheer Skirt Pic, and the male photographer who felt that, regardless of embarrassment to the 19 year old woman in the pic, felt it was "too good" not to publish:Diana Sheer Skirt Revealing Legs Pic

Brilliant Cyndi Lauper "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" Video

Sonja humors Vanessa for one last sail around in the odyssey ship as IWAW asks if an orphaned, mistreated, Victorian-Era heroine is really on an odyssey of her own.  Jane Eyre sure does travel, meets “monsters” both female and male (Aunt Reed & St. John are nothing if not terrifying), but IWAW uncovers some VERY surprising parallels that become clear when examining this classic novel through the lens of a Homeric odyssey.  Spoiler alerts, but if you’ve already read this engaging, inspiring, enduring young woman’s quest, we promise to point out some elements you have never considered.  Set out on the heath in the driving rain with Sonja and Vanessa to see Jane’s journey with new eyes!

Sonja and Vanessa play around with the odyssey concept and ask if the story 40-something Janie Crawford tells her BFF, Pheoby, in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God fits the definition of an Odyssey…and if maybe that’s even what Hurston had in mind in her legendary first two paragraphs?  Can following an unfamiliar dirt road be like the winds of the Aegean Sea tossing one into the unknown?  Is an odyssey about where you or what you ultimately learn about yourself?  Can marriages be battles? And what if the hot odyssey-sex involved is not with an strange, immortal witch but with the person you love most in the world?  Spoiler alerts! So if you want to read the novel first and then go on this journey with us, Sonja and Vanessa are waiting for you by the gate with idea-bags packed!

Works referenced:

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

Warning:  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!

After you have read VICTORIAN PSYCHO–a novel that made NPR's Books We Love 2025 List for “seriously good writing”--come back and listen to a lively run down of the historical background that Feito weaves into her narrative.  There’s so much of it that we can’t begin to cover it all in an hour! Feito brilliantly conjures the Victorian social landscape, and she does it all via the distinct voice of Winifred Notty, a ferociously bright, funny, and totally unhinged narrator.  But is Winifred any more unhinged than the world that she inhabits?  Indeed, could one argue that Winifred, this psychotic and goal-oriented governess, a product of the moral hypocrisies of an era that felt utterly sure of its own righteousness?

Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa enjoy a historic journey replete with chamber pots, tooth decay, arsenic fashion, animal fat hair products, and Christmas cards featuring dead birds and marching lobsters.  

REFERENCES:

To learn more about the author, head to her website, virginiafeito.com.

Check out art by James Ensor, the artist after whom Feito names the house in the novel. Doesn’t it hit the right mood?

Here is a link to the painting that features in Ensor House’s Dining Decor.

For a fun explanation of chamber pots and open drawers, check out Elsie Jean, The Well Dressed Historian's video on You Tube.

If you’d like to read more about preparing and eating the delicacy that is the ortelan bunting (the bird the book mentions a diner eating, bones and all), you should check out this informative and entertainingly-written Atlas Obscura Article that includes pics.  

Here is the interview in which Feito mentions her mother’s reaction to the first draft of the novel.

Here is just one of many articles on Victorian Christmas cards, and you can also just google samples of Vic Christmas cards and judge for yourself. 

This National Library of Medicine article cites statistics about how many deaths in 19th century Britain could be traced back to infectious diseases. 

Here is the link to The Molly Brown Museum page about deadly Victorian cosmetics and apparel, like arsenic green ballgowns.

For a taste of Victorian beauty advice, check out an excerpt from an 1870 Harper's Bazaar.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia page that quotes chapters from the Ugly Girl Papers.

Here is a link to read about the Victorian Corset Controversy that includes the letter to the editor quoted in this episode.

In the seventh episode of IWAW’s Odyssey series, Sonja and Vanessa circle back to Penelope–home base of The Odyssey in so many ways–by reading and discussing Margaret Atwood’s brief, poetic, witty take on how Penelope really feels about her absent husband.  Plus, Atwood gives voice to “the maidens,” a multiple murder that can’t be left off Odysseus’s hero resume. Spoiler Alert for Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad! 

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

Margaret Atwood's website

Can Odysseus even HAVE an Odyssey without female characters to help him, terrorize him, and sometimes both? Join Sonja and Vanessa as their guest, classics scholar Amy Meyers, dishes on Scylla, the Sirens, and the intimidating goddess, Athena.  Like an arrow through a dozen axe holes lined up, Homer’s male hero shoots through the decidedly feminine architecture of his labyrinthian odyssey. 

Sources mentioned:

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles

The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer's Odyssey by Beth Cohen

Sonja takes Vanessa down a rabbit hole to the 12th century for a scandalous romance, starring a very learned woman named Heloise.  If you’re tired of the passion ending at the altar, this episode’s for you: spicy letters, secluded country estates, lots of reading, divine and carnal love, and keeping passion lit–even in the face of late-in-life eunuchism.  IWAW celebrates that love can be messy!

Letters of Abelard and Heloise by Pierre Bayle

Sonja and Vanessa visit Circe’s Island, both in the Odyssey and in Madeline Miller’s brilliant novel. For those keeping score: time with Calypso + Circe = 80% of Odysseus’s 10-year trip home is on Love Islands with gorgeous, immortal women. Vanessa quizzes Sonja on ancient Greek witchcraft and why women keep giving grown men baths, and Sonja, as always, knows a thing or two. Spoiler Alerts for Madeline Miller’s Circe!

Works referenced:
Circe by Madeline Miller

“Bias, She Wrote: The Gender Bias of the New York Times Bestseller List,” by Rosie Cima

“Patterns of Persecutions: ‘Witchcraft’ Trials in Ancient Athens,” by Esther Eidinow

Theogony by Hesiod

“Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” by Joan Scott
“Circe’s Etruscan Pharmaka: Reconsidering a Fragment of Aeschylean Elegy,” by Jessica Lightfoot

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell