"What Happened to You?" Writings by Disabled Women.

Surely feminist/women's creative writing doesn't all have to be overtly militant, explicitly angry with strong heroines and neatly wrapped up triumphant endings," writes Maria Jastrzebska to editor Lois Keith, in the process of revising a manuscript for this anthology.

You seem to have a blueprint of how you'd like us to write but maybe we don't all fit into the mould! I hope there will be some room in your book for sadness, loss, grief, frustration which are also part of our experience. (pp.200-201)

In her response, Keith mentions a conversation with another disabled woman, who exclaims, "I'm sick of loss, we ought to be moving on from that...."

Keith's introduction and appendix of editorial correspondence reveal some of the soul-searching she and her contributors underwent during the creation of this book, In assembling a collection of poetry, fiction and essays by women with disabilities, this editor assumed a daunting task. She tried to represent women "from a wide variety of backgrounds and ages, and with different impairments and experiences. I wanted work which dealt with the most private aspects of …