- Follow Your Bell: "At the Brooklyn Museum where I went to see Judy Chicago's exhibit The Dinner Party, I read all the names on what she calls the heritage panels....All I had to do was read a short paragraph about Sarah and Angelina Grimke and I knew I would be writing about them for years." (The above picture features the Grimke sisters.)
- Notice What Won't Leave: "...the Grinkes were maverick women, probably the most radical couple of sisters to ever come out of the antebellum South, that's for sure. And I loved that about them. They didn't just capture my imagination, they captured my heart."
- Draw Your World: " I made the drawing of the Grimkes' house pretty much at the beginning of my work on the book. I love knowing what rooms the characters are moving in -- as well as what the outside looked like and the whole work yard in the back of the house, the tree and the walled-in area where they had slave quarters. I need that whole world of my characters so I can picture it in my head while I write."
- Make a (Very Flexible) Outline: "I am one of those people who likes to have a guide. it's a loose guide......I created six large, separate outlines, one for each part of the book, and hung them around my study. I wrote them on big butcher paper that was probably 2 feet long, and I used pencil, because though I had a general idea of what would happen, I ended up changing it as I went. With pencil, you can always erase."
- Make a (Very Flexible) Deadline: "I did six months of research on the novel. But than I had to stop. The imagination wants to play with what it loves. That's what it does. And if
- we can allow the imagination to play with the idea, something very large and wonderful can sprout out of it. (Or THE idea will just sort of dissipate because it wasn't the right thing.)....The more my imagination played with it, the more certain I became. A novel requires a long time....and I knew this one had to sustain my passion for years."
Note:
For further information on Judy Chicago's exhibit The Dinner Party: www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings
This exhibit is Feminist Art and the place settings honoring significant women in history
are divided into 3 wings.
Under the 3rd wing: American Revolution to the Women's Revolution - you will find
Sojourner Truth.
If you click on Sojourner Truth's entry, you will find the Grimke Sisters (listed separately) under
Related Heritage Floor Entries.
After this discussion we will be back on track, meeting on the first Thursday of the Month.
I hope to see you on the 8th!