What, Why, How: Nancy Owen Nelson

WHAT?

For years I wrote poetry here and there, publishing one or two in journals and anthologies. My main focus was academic writing, so I spent much of my time in research.

In 1995, I was asked to edit a collection of essays by women in the personal voice, called “feminist literary criticism.” The resulting book, Private Voices, Public Lives: Women Speak on the Literary Life (UNT Press, 1996) was such a freeing experience for me and, I believe, for the women who submitted essays. We were...