Women Writing Socially in Academia: Dispatches from Writing Rooms

by Joana Pais Zozimo (Editor), Kate Sotejeff-Wilson (Editor), Wendy Baldwin (Editor)

This book offers a multifaceted perspective on social writing in a volatile, uncertain and complex world. It meets the need to enable women’s capacity, especially in academic settings, to structure their own writing practice and that of others in the community. It expands current research on social writing beyond its core context in English-speaking countries to multilingual contexts from Portugal to Finland, identifying fruitful areas for interdisciplinary research, nexuses of social practice, and strategies for situated social learning through a feminist lens, bringing women from the margins to the centre. As the average woman academic with children is losing an hour of research and writing time every day in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of which will be felt for decades, the book purposefully entwines these polyphonic voices to tell the story of a writing retreat as a space for leadership and empowerment.

241 pages, Hardcover

Published January 5, 2024

Reviews

[Tiina Mahlamäki · Rating 5 out of 5]

The articles in the collection describe a range of solutions – writing retreats or meetings – to support academic writing, based on Rowena Murray's Social Writing Method. Particular attention is paid to the problems of writing for women and sexual and gender minorities. Writing retreats have been carried out not only as traditional face-to-face meetings, but also as various virtual encounters during and after the covid-19 pandemic. Despite initial suspicions, virtual writing retreats have also proven to be effective. The book also takes into account multilingualism and the fact that those of us academic writers for whom English is not our first language are starting our careers from a rather backward position.