Healing Across Time and Space
Dear Creative Woman, To begin to comprehend our need for each other, consider the medieval pair Hildegard von Bingen (a mystic cloistered from age eight) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (a queen imprisoned by her husband for sixteen years), who forged an epistolary relationship. Today, we are no longer forced to wait patiently for letters to cross seas, yet our connection is equally precious....
And Rose Our Voices Like Waves
Dear Creative Woman, Today we respond to the call of our times and our community to release the confluence of women’s voices — both from our anthology and new work — into shared, published WAVES. Our New WAVES “Dragging Virginia Woolf’s Body Out of the Ouse” WAVES digital cover art by Christy Sheffield Sanford, Artist in Residence, Global Day Camp, Oct. 24 ...
We Ask Our Ancestors to Speak to Us
In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés says, “Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation.” The process by which AROHO invites submissions is an invitation into call-and-response, a shared dialogue as women of the world and, deeper still, into our own transformations. We paused on Friday for 9/11 to remember; and in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month this September, we celebrate the...
What Does It Mean to Be a Creative Woman?
What does it mean to be a creative woman? In the call to gather in a virtual women-led, intention-setting creative workspace called Global Summer Camp, so many of you responded from around the world that we expanded our original attendance to include more women. We are from seven different countries and stunningly-diverse backgrounds, and AROHO is galvanized to make more room for more women in gatherings to come....
A Gift to the Silenced
You hold space with us in this world for diverse women’s voices. It is the call of our times to reach together across limitations to connect in rooms of our own making and to amplify each other’s voices and our creative work. We are excited to share a new vision for AROHO gatherings, Global Summer Camp. This is one way we are making more room. Inspired by women’s requests in The Q and our recent “Voices of...
Voice of Women Artists During the Pandemic
On June 24, 2020, St. Paul’s College and AROHO Foundation participated in an international webinar on “Voice of Women Artists during the Pandemic.” Panelists Darlene Chandler Bassett, Karina Puente, and Sun Cooper participated live with Moderator Saranya Francis, with a special video message from Bhanu Kapil. AROHO is grateful to Saranya Francis and St. Pauls College for making this shared space possible, and to...
The Fire is a Kind of Breath Too
A Room of Her Own Foundation has always worked to elevate women’s voices from around the world to help us find each other and make waves. This is why AROHO aligns in principle with anti-racism and justice movements. We are committed to our moral and mutual responsibility to each other, and to the principle of inclusion that honors, engages, and sustains our diverse, global community. We stand with our sisters for love, equality, and...
What is Summoned Forth?
What is summoned forth for you these days? At our April invitation for creative women to submit, a surge arrived speaking to ancestors. Whether by sirens of courage or whispers of persistence, we are compelled to meet each other in the waves and listen to the stories coming from the depths, “from everything.” Find and share these women and their works in full. Names are in bold for those who have provided more about where...
In a Time Apart, What Does It Mean to Have a Room of Your Own?
In a time spent apart, our creativity becomes resourceful. Our rituals are a reminder of what roots us. Our community and virtual acts of connection are all the more vital, and yet the claim to our own space all the more necessary, too. What does it mean now to have room of your own? Has it changed or remained the same? If a photograph, an essay, a poem, a piece of art could reflect your “room” in these historic days, what...
Palace of Pages
In lean times, we find our sustenance. Feast on “bread and roses” from women in your community who are sharing their creative origin stories. Our resilient pageant continues: in a climate where many art programs are cutting back and communities worldwide are thinking more deeply about how to better take care of each other, we are sustaining open-access submissions this year for any woman who would like to share her story,...
Celebrating 20 Years of Creative Women
In celebration of 20 Years of Creative Women and in the spirit of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment for women’s rights, we begin by inviting you to a year-long pageant of supporting and elevating each other’s voices. Alongside our new monthly series sharing excerpts from the upcoming Waves anthology, together we are sustaining open-access submissions this year for any woman who would like to share her story, her...
A Room of Her Own for the Season
During this season, we understand how full these festive and holy times can be; may the women’s voices and art shared here be a warm beacon. This is one way we make room for ourselves and for each other. Do you have a room of your own? Submit your creative response/work for possible publication with AROHO. Find the “submit” button on this page. Enjoy these creative women’s words and art and truth....
2019 Corazon de Corrales Gift of Fellowship for Two Women
The Corazon de Corrales Gift of Fellowship Dear Creative Woman, We are delighted to share Corazon de Corrales, a bed-and-breakfast in the Village of Corrales, New Mexico, and Charlene Spiegel, the generous woman who is offering a writer’s residency for two women here. On this beautiful secluded acre, Charlene Spiegel has hosted AROHO’s Fire Heart Circle’s annual meetings. We’ve gathered in her rooms,...
An Intimate Conversation with Sandy Coomer
Dear Creative Woman, In an intimate interview, AROHO’s own Cassandra Lane met with Sandy Coomer to talk about the Rockvale Writers’ Colony, her upcoming gift to one woman for a week-long writer’s residency there inspired by the power of creativity, and her effervescent response to our featured question : Do you have a room of your own? What inspired your creation of this gift and could you describe the details? Be...
Do You Have a Room of Your Own?
Dear Creative Woman, Do you have a room of your own? We want to hear from you. Find the submit button to the right and share your creative response in art, prose, poem, photography, essay, music and more. ______________________________________________ “Solitude” by Jana O’Dell Quiet yet chaotic, this room holds all my secrets, all my faults and shortcomings, yet it still sees how fragile I am. No one...
What is A Room of Your Own?
“In an environment like mine, what may have seemed too lofty or ambitious in my character was absolutely needed to keep the heart from breaking and enthusiasm from extinction.” — Margaret Fuller, American journalist, editor, and advocate, The Letters of Margaret Fuller Dear Creative Woman, In considering our ancestors and each other, Margaret’s letters and Virginia’s questions of utmost importance shape...
Ancestor Maps & Muses
From an Artistic Ancestor, May Sarton “I wrote poems to and about them [the muses]; I put them into novels … I lived with their faces … I studied them as if they were maps of the world — and in a way, I suppose they were.” — May Sarton, American poet, novelist and memoirist “Portrait of May Sarton” by Polly Thayer, 1936, courtesy of Fogg Art Museum Whether they serve as muses or maps of the world,...
Homage to Literary Ancestor: Toni Morrison
“Tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.” – Toni Morrison, American novelist, essayist, and teacher Dear Creative Woman, Our town was a tiny landlocked one in Louisiana. Devoid of bookstores and gathering writers. As kids – black,...
A Life Force Quickened
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.” ― Martha Graham, American modern dancer and choreographer “If you dance, dance. If you sing, sing. If you build, build. If you cook, cook. If you carve, carve. If you weave, weave. If you write, write. If you prophesy, prophesy.”...
Makers and Carriers of Fresh Meaning
“Bless the poets, the workers for justice, the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache, the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh meaning— We will all make it through, despite politics and wars, despite failures and misunderstandings. There is only love.” ― Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems Our new U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, poet Barbara Buckman Strasko, singer of heartache...