Cathleen Miller discusses Maine women writers on MPBN’s "Maine Calling"
On May 4, 2016, Cathleen Miller, M.A., M.L.S., curator of UNE’s Maine Women Writers Collection, was a guest on MPBN’s radio program “Maine Calling” to discuss Maine Women in History.
Miller introduced listeners to two remarkable women writers from Maine: Sally Wood, considered the first American female writer of gothic fiction, and Ruth Moore, whose novel Spoonhandle was made into a movie, Deep Water.
Miller shared her views on the value of collecting writing from Maine women writers, as opposed to Maine writers in general.“Why we collect women’s voices, specifically, is one that always comes up in my work, and I think what women struggle against to create that work historically and still is [that] women are having kids; they’re taking care of their families; and they’re writing books,” she said.
“In our collection, we have women’s diaries, which tell the stories of women who didn’t have the luxury of writing books or didn’t have the time to become educated. But they wrote little notes about their lives, and those tell us really important details about history that are not written in the history books.”