Author Archives: Katherine Barrett

About Katherine Barrett

Katherine Barrett is Understorey Magazine’s founder and editor in chief.

2014: The Year of Reading Women

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Winter Tree Holds a Jay Blue Torn From Summer Sky by Mary Reardon

This year, 2014, is the year to read women authors—or so declares writer and illustrator Joanna Walsh. Her campaign began modestly: a few New Year’s “cartes de voeux” with a suggested reading list and a #readwomen2014 hashtag on Twitter.

The Guardian picked up the story in January, however, and readers, writers, booksellers, and literary journals have since joined the challenge if not to read women exclusively, at least to read and promote more women writers than in previous years.

Why? Because to date, newspapers and magazines have marketed books by men more vigorously than books by women.

The US organization VIDA, Women in Literary Arts, has kept track of the numbers since 2010; their most recent report was released yesterday. VIDA’s now-famous pie charts show that, in general, publications review more books authored by men than books authored by women. In some cases, the difference is striking. For example, the New York Review of Books reviewed 307 books by men in 2013, but only 80 books by women.

Canadian Women in the Literary Arts (CWILA) keeps similar stats. Some Canadian literary publications, The Walrus and This Magazine for example, reviewed more books by women than by men in 2012. But the big newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the National Post, reviewed far more books by men.

Book reviews are important. They guide readers and buyers who then guide agents and publishers—who, in turn, release more books into the market. Publishing more reviews of books by women and reading more books by women will help shift that cycle in new directions.

Of course, we’re doing our part here at Understorey Magazine. In this, our second issue we feature both new and established women writers, as well as women visual artists, from across Nova Scotia, from Yarmouth to Cape Breton.

Please join the conversation—and the campaign. Share your thoughts on what you’ve read here, and who you’re reading next, by leaving a comment on the Understorey website or on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Thank you and happy reading!

-Katherine

About the Artist

Mary Reardon

Mary Reardon is a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1993. Her work has been the recipient of numerous awards and she has exhibited in galleries in Nova Scotia and Toronto as well as internationally. She has most recently exhibited in solo and group shows with the Nova Scotia Art Sales and Rental Society. Her work is in private and corporate collections nationally and internationally, and with the Nova Scotia Art Bank. Mary presently lives and works in north-end Halifax. “In my work I am concerned with creating visual metaphors that describe the moment when something is remembered or forgotten. The intricate network of trees is used to re-create the interwoven process by which our minds store and retrieve our memories. The titles of my ‘Branch’ series are composed to reflect the complex and poetic nature of the process.” Please see more of Mary’s work on her website.

Welcome to Understorey Magazine

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Corkum’s Island by Anya Holloway

Welcome to the first issue of Understorey Magazine, stories of motherhood in Nova Scotia. We are very pleased to publish new writers, new works by established writers, and visual art from women around the province.

Through diverse artistic styles and personal experiences, our contributors have created a full cast of women and mothers: the joyous, the struggling, the lost then found, the expectant, the raging, the unheard, and many more.

These writers and artists show that motherhood is not uniform or static. There is no code or role to squeeze into. While our stories might overlap—and there is great strength at these junctions—no two motherhoods are the same; none is more worthy or typical or right.

Understorey Magazine weaves together several strands of my own motherhood experience. I gave birth to three children within fourteen months: my eldest followed by twins. Until that time, I’d thought very little about mothers or babies. Some of my friends had children but many did not. I saw little difference: just bring the kid with you, I figured, and continue life as always. But within the span of two years, I found myself housebound, unable to work or shop or even go to the bathroom without making prior arrangements. Not so easy.

When my kids were toddlers, I met a woman at playgroup who also had three boys under two. She changed a diaper with another baby strapped to her chest and still kept an eye on her eldest racing around the room. She looked shell-shocked but said, “I could probably run a small country now.”

For me, it took becoming a mother to see motherhood. Then we moved to South Africa, and I saw much more.

The twins had just turned two and my older son was three when we arrived in Cape Town. I knew no one. I didn’t work outside the home but looked after the kids: thirteen hours, broken sleep, thirteen hours again. I found it hard. I thought I had it hard, until I met mothers who showed me real hardship, lives I could barely fathom yet lives that still, in surprising ways, intersected with mine. From those women, I learned that we all do more than we take credit for—and are capable of still more than we do. I now believe most mothers could run a small country.

Understorey grew from my own motherhood and from the stories of other women. A third strand is my experience with Literary Mama and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. In my years working with these magazines, I’ve come to love all stages of the publishing process: meeting writers and reading their work, editing (yes, I love to edit), creating a finished piece, and spreading the word among readers. More than the process, however, these women-focused magazines taught me the power of shared stories, of saying: This is who I am. This is what I’ve seen. This is what I think and how I feel.

Understorey Magazine celebrates the strength, diversity, creativity, and community of women and mothers in Nova Scotia. We invite you to read and share these stories. We also value your opinion. Please tell us what you have enjoyed in the magazine, what you would change, and what you would like to see in future issues. You can leave a comment on the website (in the space under each story) or email me at editor@understoreymagazine.ca.

Thanks for reading!

Katherine

New Books: Milk Fever

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Milk Fever
by Lissa M. Cowan
Demeter Press, 2013

The “wet nurse” now seems an antiquated term and obsolete profession, but only a hundred years ago wet-nursing was common throughout the world and remains so in many cultures today.

Canadian author Lissa M. Cowan was fascinated by the practice of wet-nursing, particularly the long-held notion that personality, emotions, and morals could be transferred to babies through breast milk. In Milk Fever, her debut novel, Cowan explores this idea in her character Armande Vivant, a wet nurse renown for the magical quality of her milk.

The story takes place on the eve of the French Revolution, 1789. Armande’s services are in great demand as France’s rich grow richer and poor poorer. Armande, unlike most wet nurses of her time, is well-educated and her reputation for reviving sickly infants, suckling them into robust, precocious toddlers, has garnered both awe and suspicion. Through this unusual character, Cowan examines key themes of the French Revolution: shifting power structures, women’s rights, and the role of science versus folklore.

Part historical novel, part mystery, Milk Fever is also an exploration of motherhood and the roles of foster mothers and nursing mothers. The story is narrated by Celeste, a 16-year-old orphaned servant-girl who helps Armande care for her charges and protects her from the ill will of neighbours. In return, Armande teaches Celeste to read and write, and becomes the mother Celeste never knew. When Armande goes missing, Celeste follows a trail of secrets to Paris and into the heart of the Revolution.

While set in the 18th century, Milk Fever raises questions relevant today. Debate about wet-nursing, now called cross-nursing, is on the rise. Organizations such as La Leche League support breastfeeding and screened milk banks, but generally discourage informal cross-nursing. Such arrangements are often short-term and reciprocal (mothers feed one another’s babies) but according to La Leche, donating unscreened milk risks transmission of illness, including HIV, drugs, and environmental contaminants—not emotions or personality, but perhaps our 21st century “milk fever.”

Other new titles by Canadian authors at Demeter Press include Fresh Hell, Motherhood in Pieces and Chasing Rainbows, Exploring Gender Fluid Parenting Practices. See Demeter’s 2013 catalogue for more details.