Blogging Woolf

On this, the 62nd anniversary of her death, common readers and writers around the globe remember Virginia Woolf, in words as well as music:

I am remembering Virginia Woolf today, as are many. She died too soon, but by her own choice. What great works she may have written, we will never know. But her influence will be felt for centuries. I know that reading her novels, diaries, letters, and works written about her, by those who knew her, influenced my life in numerous ways. I became a college English instructor, and have also written an op-ed column, and freelance articles, and always in the back of my mind, I thought of Virginia and her struggles and triumphs, in a time when women were supposed to get married and be quiet. RIP dear friend.  – Carol Butler Jensen on the Virginia Woolf Facebook Page

Gift of Freedom Winner Diane Gilliam, Poetry

“It’s not a simple thing to be on the side of life.  There’s no naivete to it, it’s not a wish to return to the simplicity, the unambiguous peace of the Garden.   “[T]he beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder,” Woolf says near the beginning of A Room of One’s Own, locating the beauty of the world right on the fine line between love and grief.  To hold the balance of those two opposites, this is my version of being on the side of life, to know that both things are always true even though on any given day one or the other may be out of sight.  For me, that’s wholeness, presence, sanity.” Read More of Diane’s Essay “Two Edges”

Genre Finalist Florencia Ramirez, Creative Nonfiction

“I am grateful to Virginia Woolf’s legacy that spills beyond the constraints of her years lived. The long string of words, sentences, stories and books she wrote in her lifetime continue to breathe with new vitality.  They spread and take new forms; like a writer’s retreat in Ghost Ranch or a woman inspired to write her own stories in a room of her own. Each act reminds us that Virginia Woolf hasn’t died; she became a river.”  Read More of Florencia’s Essay“Virginia Woolf and a River”

Genre Finalist Ire’ne Lara Silva, Fiction

“How do we define ‘tragedy’? How do we define ‘victory’? Virginia Woolf was 59 years old when she took her own life. She chose the time and manner of her passing. For how many years—how many decades—was she able to keep the demons at bay with her creative work?”Can we ask for more than that? To outrun the darkness and wrestle the monsters with all our might long enough to say what we most needed to say the way we needed to say it? To leave a legacy of work and thought and aesthetics that has influenced and will influence so many writers, so many women?”  Read More of Ire’ne’s Essay “The Dream:  Reflections on the Anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s Suicide”

Today’s responses from readers of Woolf