Call for Papers:
Women Writers Special Issue Summer 2005
Lit Candles: Feminist Mentoring and the Text

The field of women's studies has devoted increasing attention to the ways
in which women act as mentors for other women. Most such scholarship has
centered either on pedagogical approaches to feminist mentoring in academia
or on networks of professional support between women. These two areas of
inquiry, however, scarcely account for the ways in which women mentor and
are mentored by other women--especially among "third wave" feminists. For
this issue of Women Writers, therefore, we would like to examine the ways in
which women create mentoring relationships through the creation of and
attachment to texts. We hope to bring together a collection of pieces that
will both celebrate and interrogate these relationships. For a more
detailed description of the proposal, see:
http://www.womenwriters.net/summer05/proposal.html

Potential areas of inquiry may include (but are not limited to):

How is the process of coming to consciousness as a woman--and/or a
feminist--facilitated by textual mentors? What role do texts and their
authors play in mentoring women?
How do portrayals of women's mentoring relationships differ between male
and female writers?
What texts in particular have served as mentor-texts for feminist readers?
Which characters stand out as role models, inviting personal relationships
with readers?
How do women's reading groups take on mentoring functions? How do texts
facilitate mentoring relationships between individual women readers within
and outside of academia?
How does feminist mentoring differ from more traditional female bonds like
motherhood, sisterhood, or friendship? How do these kinds of relationships
inform or impact mentoring? How are they textualized in similar or
different ways?
What similarities and differences exist between relationships of inspiration
(Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, for example) and relationships of
mentoring?
Who have been the mentors--real or textual--for women writers? In what
ways do patron/protégé relationships act as (or act against) other models
of mentoring?
How do race, class, age, or sexual orientation influence mentoring
relationships? How are these factors mediated by textual mentoring?

We also invite original creative works of fiction or poetry taking on any
aspect of women, mentoring, and texts. Interviews between women and their
mentors are also welcome.

We especially encourage collaborative or paired submissions by women and
their mentors.

Queries and submissions should be sent to the Guest Editors of this issue,
April Gentry and Teri Schell, at guesteditor_at_womenwriters.net.

Submissions are due no later than midnight EST on 1 May 2005. Please see
full submission guidelines at http://www.womenwriters.net/contribute.htm.

Submissions formatted for the web (.html, hypertext) will be especially
regarded, but are not required.

Contributions should be submitted to the Guest Editors
(guesteditor_at_womenwriters.net) in digital form:
*text-based contributions should be saved as Microsoft Word documents (.doc
or .rtf), Word Perfect documents: (.wpd), or web-ready documents (.html).
*images should be saved as jpegs (.jpg) or gifs (.gif)

For information about submitting material in media formats that are not
listed above, contact Kim Wells at kimwells_at_womenwriters.net

Please consult The MLA Manual of Style for proper manuscript form. All
manuscripts or correspondence regarding the submission of manuscripts will
be directed to the Guest Editor of the issue to which you wish to
contribute.

Women Writers is listed in the LOC, ISSN#: 1535-8402535-8402, has had almost
60 MILLION viewers since its creation in 1998, and is a peer reviewed
publication that features original fiction and poetry by women writers,
scholarship on any aspect of women writers and/or women's studies, personal
essays, book reviews, film reviews, and website reviews. This is an
excellent opportunity to expand your "service" events; most tenure
committees view web publication as equivalent to or slightly better than
conference attendance and participation. See the site's mission statement
for more information: http://www.womenwriters.net/editoralboard.html

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Received on Fri Mar 04 2005 - 10:31:57 EST