gladys winkworth

 

I have been writing things in my head for decades, mostly before I go to sleep, sometimes waking in the middle of the night, sometimes putting a poem or short story on paper, but never editing and rarely sharing any of my work.  I decided during COVID that retirement is time to get some of this stuff out of my head, on to paper, and edited. 

​

My ideas are quirky, and weird, and they test the limits of social acceptability like my favorite writers: DH Lawrence, Ferlinghetti, Tony Morrison, Mia Angelou and many others.  I write my name in lower case in hommage to e.e.cummings.  I am also influenced by Star Trek’s exploration of social and political issues by placing characters and situations in cultures on other planets.

​

I like to turn things around and look at them from a different direction.  When I read Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, nearly 40 years ago, I became angry.  Kudos to the writer who elicits emotion from the reader.  Someone should write about a society where women are in charge and men are in servitude, so I stood on my head and wrote the Revenge of the Handmaids, in tribute to the handmaids of the Bible, of Margaret Atwood’s imagination, and to the handmaids of the 20th century who acquired the right to vote, and continue slowly step by step launching a rebellion against gender inequality, and especially to women around the world and in our own country who are abused or denied education and jobs; those who are in positions of servitude.

I hope you find some of my work interesting.