Women (Re)Writing Illness as Their Own

Women (Re)Writing Illness as Her Own illuminates ways in which writing processes and products enable women to create spaces of their own—spaces that interrogate illness, challenge restitution (re)constructions, and work within and around various limitations associated with women writing illness.

Bridging trauma studies with women’s studies, this collection blends creative writing and literary studies to explore how illness can weigh on the process of writing. The chapters examine narrative products to better understand how women write illnesses in relation to identity (re)constructions, how they challenge triumphant tropes, how they work within and beyond narrative and linguistic limitations, how the very metaphors and/or genres selected work to aid in their narrating processes, and how their writing acts and products work in conjunction with their illness and (sometimes) healing journeys.