While out on the perimeter, women discovered the freedom of badlands. They were curiously free to invent, without having to liberate themselves from the forms and rewards of the cultural norm.

Rena noticed me watching it pass. 'You think they don't got problem?' Rena said. 'Everybody got problem. You got me, they got insurance, house payment, Preparation H.' She smiled, baring the part between her two upper teeth. 'We are the free birds. They want to be us.

Women writers specifically... are the ultimate outsiders.

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

Most women experience issues of power and sexuality, but very few women talk about it. There's the threat of the loss of approval.

My mother was an enthusiastic chef but wildly disorganized, and often preferred purchasing yet another jar of mace or chili powder rather than having to hunt down its last incarnation.