The Cancer Journals, Special Edition, Aunt Lute Books, San Francisco, CA, 1997, p. 13.
The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.
The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.
This post is the eighth in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.
There's not much I can add about Audre Lorde than what she herself said, as depicted in Mildred Thompson's portrait of Ms. Lorde.
Black Lesbian Mother Warrior Poet. She Who Makes Her Meaning Known.
Ms. Lorde renamed herself twice. As a child, she dropped the 'y' from her birth name, Audrey, and went with Audre, which aligned more pleasingly with her surname Lorde. Later in life, Ms. Lorde chose another new name for herself, Gamba Adisa, which Ms. Lorde translated as "warrior: she who makes her meaning known."
"If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."The Cancer Journals.
“I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain.”Black Women Writers, per Poetry Foundation.
As a woman born to immigrants, a woman of color, a lesbian, womanist, poet, activist, a human with cancer - coming up in the 1940s and 1950s - she needed to be strong to live her fullest life.
Women of courage like Audre Lord? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.
Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.
