Diane Masiello is a part-time writer and a full-time mom, wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law. Like many who are currently part of the “sandwich generation,” – those who still have kids at home but are also taking care of aging parents—she is also trying to find the time to carve out some space for her own passions. In her earlier life she earned a Ph.D. in Education from New York University, and worked as an Instructor of English, then Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tampa. In 2003 she left academia to raise her two daughters—the longest, hardest job she’s ever held, and the most rewarding. During her time in academia she edited and contributed to a variety of academic publications, but her greatest joy was the publication of her first short fantasy story, “The Sunspot,” in CrossTime Science Fiction Anthology Vol. II. She has her own blog, “Afternoons with Coffee Spoons,” which started as a mommy blog but ended when she realized her daughters had become old enough that writing about them without their permission seemed invasive. She has just completed her first young adult fantasy novel, Keeper, and is starting on the maze-like road toward publication. She is thrilled to be a part of The Gloria Sirens and looks forward to the conversations her blog posts may inspire.
I think the history of western feminism is fraught with racism, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that and, at the same time, to say that feminism is not a western invention, that my great-grandmother in what is now south-western Nigeria is feminist.
–Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
To have privilege in one or more areas does not mean you are wholly privileged. Surrendering to the acceptance of privilege is difficult, but it is really all that is expected . . . the acknowledgement of my privilege is not a denial of ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
–Roxane Gay
Protests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings . . .
white rage doesn’t have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard. Instead, white rage has access to the courts, police, legislatures, and governors, who cast its efforts as noble . . .
–Jesmyn Ward
My job is not to regulate your response to the truth. My job is to tell it.
–Yaa Gyasi
The fate of millions of people–indeed the future of the black community itself–may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society.
–Michelle Alexander
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
–Warsan Shire
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again. And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
–Sojourner Truth
You have to get over the fear of facing the worst in yourself. Fear the thought that right now, you could be contributing to the oppression of others and you don’t know it. But do not fear those who bring that oppression to light. Do not fear the opportunity to do better.
–Ijeoma Oluo
Do everything you can for love, and you will see what you are capable of. One can make more progress this way in a year, than in ten by the way of fear.
–St. Mary Euphrasia
The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was that important to them: there ought to be as many for love.
–Margaret Atwood
