Author Description

Inspired by her late friend who hid much of her art in her attic, and the stories of her writer and artist friends, Nitza Agam has compiled the truth behind what drives women writers and artists to express their creativity. What are the struggles, the obstacles, and the triumphs and joys? All reside in this diverse collection of women who have known, some from an early age, the need to create using words or images or both. They may have realized this while pursuing another path, or knew as children, the higher calling of documenting their lives, or expressing their inner selves. Nitza Agam kept journals since the age of eight, while Gretchen Butler knew when her children were toddlers that the kitchen actually was an artist’s inspiration. Marlene Shikegawa knew as a young Japanese American girl the joy of seeing her drawings on a bulletin board at school and feeling “seen” for the first time. That moment of being seen, no longer invisible, drew these women to trace their “origin” stories.