outside child

Have you been following the great posts over at Women Doing Literary Things?  It’s my turn today, and I borrowed Audre Lorde’s term—“sister outsider”—to express both the acceptance and exclusion I’ve experienced within the publishing industry.  Here’s an excerpt:

When I learned that the goal of this blog was to “celebrate and reaffirm the depth and breadth of women’s involvement in literature,” I knew I wanted to participate. Yet when I reflect upon my involvement in the literary world, I find that little of my time and energy has gone toward addressing “the fundamental wrongness of gender disparities.” When everyone in your world is female, gender tends not to be the focus. For me, the main problem isn’t that men are impeding my progress as a writer. The truth is, behind every door that has been closed in my face…there’s another woman.

Sometimes that woman looks like me, but more often than not, she doesn’t. She belongs to a different race, a different class, and a different culture.