Gloria, this is...glorious. This should be written in calligraphy. On parchment paper. It should be a mural stretched across a wall. It should be broadcast over loudspeakers wherever humans gather. It should be on the lips of every woman who ever thought, who ever spoke, who ever wrote.
It should be memorialized with a holiday.
Your name should be among those you've honored here.
If I loved you before, my love knows no bounds now. This is a gift I can never repay. ❤️
You have all the skills of writing, brains, love, tenderness and mercy to others and a special connection with your animals and their ongoing souls that live along with you. Oh yes you have True Grit!🌟Thank you for leading us forward, always forward!!!💜🙏🌲
This poem... it has truly reached a depth within me that words often fail to touch. Tears welled as I read, not from sorrow, yet from the profound resonance, as if my own heart found its voice in your lines. You have painted a breathtaking hall of women, each stroke of your pen illuminating their fierce spirits and the enduring legacy of their words.
To witness this tapestry of courage, from Virginia Woolf's quiet yearning for space to Toni Morrison's sacred portrayal of Blackness, from Sappho's enduring whispers of love to Warsan Shire's stark depiction of exile, is to feel the very lineage of our liberation. You have so eloquently captured how these women, in their diverse struggles and triumphs, carved pathways for us, armed us with language, and refused to be silenced.
Thank you, my cherished friend, for this powerful reminder that we come from a lineage of those who wrote themselves alive against a world that sought to erase them. Thank you for stirring the storm with such grace and unwavering heart.
Thank you, Jay. I have spent the day sifting through memories of writers, friends, family, my long, long list of names in my meneragrie of fur children. And, the writers kept calling my name.
There’s something so honest about how you hold all those memories at once: the people, the animals, the words. It’s like they all live side by side in you, and somehow, you make space for every one.
I think those writers came to you because they knew you’d hear them clearly. And you did—your piece was proof of that. Thank you for answering their call and for writing it out so fiercely and beautifully.
“We get used to what we should never accept.” —Isabel Allende.
At 82, Isabel Allende is standing strong. She spoke in our hometown on Sunday for her new novel, “My Name Is Emilia del Valle.”
“To hear the voices of the silenced, to ask questions: ‘Who provided the water?’ Fear is contagious, but so is courage. Fight back. We’re a critical number. As a feminist and a woman, I’ve worked twice the amount of a man, yet for every blow, I’ve delivered two.” —Allende
A Chilean-born prolific writer who crafts sprawling, spellbound stories laced with history, political upheaval, and the private revolutions of women. Her debut, The House of the Spirits, began as a letter to her dying grandfather and turned into a multi-generational epic that launched her global literary career. She's not interested in tidy endings—her characters bleed, love fiercely, and lose everything. Allende writes in exile, but she never sounds lost—only more determined to excavate truth from tenderness, rage, and love.
In the middle of this interview, Woody (my daughter's service dog) did a loud shake. With stunning curiosity, Isabel asked, “What was that?” Several voices perked up from the silence, “The dog.”
“I love dogs. I want to see it.”
Since I read Paula, I’ve dreamed of meeting Isabel Allende. Woody made it possible. We walked to the stage. She talked to Woody, not me. I met her, happy to receive a smile and feel a deeper connection to her genius. Inspired!
I wrote a similar essay to this beginning with The iconic anthem "I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy, an Australian-American singer. Released in 1972, the song became a defining anthem of the women's liberation movement, resonating with themes of empowerment and equality.
This. Is. Phenomenal. I am already considering a wall i can hang this on. Thank you, Gloria--I am so inspired by this post today! What an incredible contrast to the news of a shameful embarrassment of a woman receiving an honorary doctorate from an institute of higher learning.
Thank you. These women and more, so many more have shaped my life in untold ways. Please pass along to others that will recall women in their own lives who deserve to be on this list.
Crystal-Lee and Gloria Horton-Young (She who stirs the STORM!) Toni Morrison's work has a sweet title -- "Beloved" -- but its scenes of escape from slavery, birth in a boat, life in a "Free" State, and the encounter -- under the Fugitive Slave Act (upheld, thank you CJ Roger Taney) -- with slave bounty-hunters, and the Zero-Bomber-Attacks of the Hummingbirds!
My God, after reading "Beloved", Hummingbirds take on the image of tiny Velociraptors, which shakes the reader and is U-N-F-O-R-G-E-T-T-A-B-L-E.
GREAT LITERATURE, by shocking the reader, can bring home the horrors of terrible injustice.
I have to laugh at myself when, so many years ago, I picked up "Beloved" for my first reading, naive to the "Beloved" in the title.
The wonder of women's words, woven through time to us, so we can knit narratives of uncomfortable truths, of reason, grace, and the divine feminine with the acceptance and welcome that they should have received, but didn't.
Gloria your poetry always resonates deeply. Could I also give Margaret Atwood a shout out too. She recently said in an interview that she cannot remember a time when words themselves have felt under such threat. Let’s all celebrate words and writing. We need all the great writers we can get!
Gloria, this is...glorious. This should be written in calligraphy. On parchment paper. It should be a mural stretched across a wall. It should be broadcast over loudspeakers wherever humans gather. It should be on the lips of every woman who ever thought, who ever spoke, who ever wrote.
It should be memorialized with a holiday.
Your name should be among those you've honored here.
If I loved you before, my love knows no bounds now. This is a gift I can never repay. ❤️
Another soulful, comprehensive tribute to she and her and they who have risen to the necessary and beyond.
Gloria Horton-Young…’The Art of Quiet Resistance’
She reads lips and lives into existence as if the world has been aching for her voice.
She throws herself into writing with bravery, grit and no holds barred from the hard, beautiful truth of this human existence.
Thank you!
You have all the skills of writing, brains, love, tenderness and mercy to others and a special connection with your animals and their ongoing souls that live along with you. Oh yes you have True Grit!🌟Thank you for leading us forward, always forward!!!💜🙏🌲
Thank you very much, Lynn ❤️
My dearest Gloria,
This poem... it has truly reached a depth within me that words often fail to touch. Tears welled as I read, not from sorrow, yet from the profound resonance, as if my own heart found its voice in your lines. You have painted a breathtaking hall of women, each stroke of your pen illuminating their fierce spirits and the enduring legacy of their words.
To witness this tapestry of courage, from Virginia Woolf's quiet yearning for space to Toni Morrison's sacred portrayal of Blackness, from Sappho's enduring whispers of love to Warsan Shire's stark depiction of exile, is to feel the very lineage of our liberation. You have so eloquently captured how these women, in their diverse struggles and triumphs, carved pathways for us, armed us with language, and refused to be silenced.
Thank you, my cherished friend, for this powerful reminder that we come from a lineage of those who wrote themselves alive against a world that sought to erase them. Thank you for stirring the storm with such grace and unwavering heart.
Thank you, Jay. I have spent the day sifting through memories of writers, friends, family, my long, long list of names in my meneragrie of fur children. And, the writers kept calling my name.
There’s something so honest about how you hold all those memories at once: the people, the animals, the words. It’s like they all live side by side in you, and somehow, you make space for every one.
I think those writers came to you because they knew you’d hear them clearly. And you did—your piece was proof of that. Thank you for answering their call and for writing it out so fiercely and beautifully.
We must remember them and carry on with their same bravery and determination.
Gloria, this is a glorious pledge to women.
“We get used to what we should never accept.” —Isabel Allende.
At 82, Isabel Allende is standing strong. She spoke in our hometown on Sunday for her new novel, “My Name Is Emilia del Valle.”
“To hear the voices of the silenced, to ask questions: ‘Who provided the water?’ Fear is contagious, but so is courage. Fight back. We’re a critical number. As a feminist and a woman, I’ve worked twice the amount of a man, yet for every blow, I’ve delivered two.” —Allende
A Chilean-born prolific writer who crafts sprawling, spellbound stories laced with history, political upheaval, and the private revolutions of women. Her debut, The House of the Spirits, began as a letter to her dying grandfather and turned into a multi-generational epic that launched her global literary career. She's not interested in tidy endings—her characters bleed, love fiercely, and lose everything. Allende writes in exile, but she never sounds lost—only more determined to excavate truth from tenderness, rage, and love.
In the middle of this interview, Woody (my daughter's service dog) did a loud shake. With stunning curiosity, Isabel asked, “What was that?” Several voices perked up from the silence, “The dog.”
“I love dogs. I want to see it.”
Since I read Paula, I’ve dreamed of meeting Isabel Allende. Woody made it possible. We walked to the stage. She talked to Woody, not me. I met her, happy to receive a smile and feel a deeper connection to her genius. Inspired!
I wrote a similar essay to this beginning with The iconic anthem "I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy, an Australian-American singer. Released in 1972, the song became a defining anthem of the women's liberation movement, resonating with themes of empowerment and equality.
She sang us alive. Thank you!
Oh, thank you, Prajna! Another woman who gives us firesong!
Yes!
This. Is. Phenomenal. I am already considering a wall i can hang this on. Thank you, Gloria--I am so inspired by this post today! What an incredible contrast to the news of a shameful embarrassment of a woman receiving an honorary doctorate from an institute of higher learning.
💜💜
Thank you. These women and more, so many more have shaped my life in untold ways. Please pass along to others that will recall women in their own lives who deserve to be on this list.
Crystal-Lee and Gloria Horton-Young (She who stirs the STORM!) Toni Morrison's work has a sweet title -- "Beloved" -- but its scenes of escape from slavery, birth in a boat, life in a "Free" State, and the encounter -- under the Fugitive Slave Act (upheld, thank you CJ Roger Taney) -- with slave bounty-hunters, and the Zero-Bomber-Attacks of the Hummingbirds!
My God, after reading "Beloved", Hummingbirds take on the image of tiny Velociraptors, which shakes the reader and is U-N-F-O-R-G-E-T-T-A-B-L-E.
GREAT LITERATURE, by shocking the reader, can bring home the horrors of terrible injustice.
I have to laugh at myself when, so many years ago, I picked up "Beloved" for my first reading, naive to the "Beloved" in the title.
Tony Morrison, Amanda Gorman, Zora Neale Horston, Jesmyn Ward, Flannery O'Connor.
How powerful is American literature!
I love your writing it inspires me to pause, reflect and feel
The wonder of women's words, woven through time to us, so we can knit narratives of uncomfortable truths, of reason, grace, and the divine feminine with the acceptance and welcome that they should have received, but didn't.
Another stunning and informative piece Beautiful Gloria
Nicely done compendium, Gloria. I love it. I will save this.
I have loved every piece of yours, but this one is absolutely the very best- you are awesome!
Love it Gloria!
Gloria your poetry always resonates deeply. Could I also give Margaret Atwood a shout out too. She recently said in an interview that she cannot remember a time when words themselves have felt under such threat. Let’s all celebrate words and writing. We need all the great writers we can get!
𝘓𝘖𝘓. 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘈𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳.
♥️ love this♥️