The Sisterhood of the Travelling Stories
Cicero once said "a room without books is like a body without a soul". As the timeline of the universe continues to evolve passed the trends and traditions of each century, books timelessly bleed their stories into generations like wine on lace.
Diction may age like milk, but lessons of literature age like a fine bottle of merlot. All books teach a lesson of the universe within their stories, while creating an oasis specific to each protagonists' environment. The words may change but the intentions are ubiquitous. The universal intention of a book is to give insight. Writers like Shakespeare, Austen, Hemmingway, and Hurston were all writers of their own time with the intention to give insight. Shakespeare taught his world about love and loss. Austen taught her world about integrity and reputation. Hemmingway taught his world about reality and war. Hurston taught her world about the desire for power and independence. None of these writers were the first, nor last, to share their insights of these themes with the world. In our world of progression and unveiling what's between the lines, one woman's Pride and Prejudice is another woman's Crazy Rich Asians.
Up and coming Author Courtney McPhail from Nottingham, UK was inspired by her Independent Study for University to publish She, Her, We, her debut collection of poems, short stories and essays. She, Her, We is a book focusing on boosting the confidence, positivity, and independence of McPhail's readers. McPhail, like a true author, wanted her book to resonate with all women from different backgrounds in order to connect with her readers, which is done beautifully, and show praise to the phenix-like power of women everywhere.
"I wanted to do something that would be fun, engaging, and put my skills to the test. She, Her, We, was the first thing that came into my mind when deciding the project because I wanted to publish something that would be interesting to read but inspiring at the same time. Women have so many great stories to tell. And as a woman, there is nothing more inspiring than hearing those stories. So I realized that I could use this opportunity to publish something that would be meaningful and rewarding."
Creative writing is nothing new to McPhail. The 23-year-old Publishing Graduate spent her early teen years writing teen fiction on Wattpad, while she pursued a career in the arts, studied acting and took on songwriting. After leaving University to self-reflect for a year, she found a Writing and Publishing course at a school she was intending to study nursing at and took a chance. From that chance came a Writing and Publishing course that steered her life into the direction of the words of She, Her, We. The UK born author's debut features sections titled Lust, Freefall and Friendships, A Night of Stars and Oceans and many more; all telling a different story to touch the multifaceted woman.
"Lust is about women feeling confident in their bodies and enjoying explicit activities. Because why shouldn’t women enjoy those things?" questioned McPhail. "Freefall and Friendships is about the bond of friendship and a woman finally becoming independent again after a break up. A Night of Stars and Oceans tells the story of a woman trying to break the stereotypical male warrior. All the pieces are unique and beautiful in their own way and without every single one, the collection wouldn’t be as wonderful as it is. I’m very lucky to have had a talented bunch of female writers offer their expertise and their vulnerability to this project."
Female Empowerment: A tale as old as time. For centuries, literature has been an outlet used to light the fire that is the story of the empowered woman. From women like Jo March and Elizabeth Bennet defying a man's economic upper hand in marriage to Katniss Everdeen's and Hermione Granger becoming the successors of a survival of the fittest test of time. With new developments in each generation, the stories of women unfold like a blooming rose, amplifying the stories and voices of women silenced once before. Literature began its conquest to reach the empowered women with female leads that touched a percentage of women in the world too small to hear the masses. Now, stories are teaching the same lessons of Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson for women of color with unique struggles of their own.
Book Reviewer Erina Nadzira titles the most influential book in her life as Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other. A story about 12 black women in the UK sharing their stories as they differ through generations. Nadzira favors stories with arches centering around complex female characters, admiring the opportunity to show a morally gray character in a feminine light.
"It [Girl, Woman, Other] definitely made me more empathetic towards my elders as I thought it did a really fantastic job kind of portraying how difficult it is to get out of certain mindsets and how you can be considered progressive at one point in time and 10 years later those beliefs are considered conservative due to the ever changing nature of the world."
While traditional publishers like The New Yorker continue to successfully share book reviews with their readers, Gen Z and Millennials are taking the book industry by storm as they trailblaze through the trenches of filters and 24-hour hashtags to share their book reviews with new media like Instagram and Tiktok. Malaysia-native Nadzira found a home on 'Bookstagram' with her account Readpersephone where she posts about her book mail, current reads, and frequent questions of the day.
"Well I've always loved to write, but I think academia / university kind of killed a lot of that love I had of writing just for fun. So my resolution this year was to try and create more instead of just consuming other people's work. Bookstagram was a natural choice when I really started reading a lot. I also liked how instead of ranting to my friends and family about books they'll probably never read, there's more of a community online of people who have that common interest."
It's no secret that a story lives a thousand years, but to our society's surprise it's not the old English or woodblock printing that makes a successful story. It's the paperbacks, hardbacks, and eBooks of Hemmingway and the Kindle covers and podcasts of Twilight. A story should be able to stich it's mark in every fabric of time and sew itself a legacy. Books are going to chase the tail of the world no matter how far it progresses because there is no history without them. And a world without history is a world with no proof of growth towards an even better society than yesterday.
Comments