Table Of Contents:
Introduction xi

from Twenty Years at Hull House 1(8)

Jane Addams

from ``Life and I'' 9(10)

Edith Wharton

from The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman 19(12)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

from The Woman Within 31(6)

Ellen Glasgow

from The Promised Land 37(10)

Mary Antin

from The Measure of My Days 47(4)

Florida Scott-Maxwell

from Dust Tracks on a Road 51(8)

Zora Neale Hurston

from Journey Around My Room 59(6)

Louise Bogan

from The Long Loneliness 65(14)

Dorothy Day

from An Unfinished Woman 79(8)

Lillian Hellman

Grandmother's Nervous Stomach from To Begin Again 87(8)

M.F.K. Fisher

from One Writer's Beginnings 95(6)

Eudora Welty

from Herself 101(12)

Hortense Calisher

from How I Grew 113(14)

Mary McCarthy

from Journal of a Solitude 127(10)

May Sarton

from Bronx Primitive 137(10)

Kate Simon

from Silences 147(10)

Tillie Olsen

from Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage 157(10)

Madeleine L'Engle

from All the Brave Promises 167(10)

Mary Lee Settle

from Orphans, Real and Imaginary 177(12)

Eileen Simpson

Autobiographical Sketch 189(12)

Denise Levertov

Beatrice Levertoff

from Where It All Began: Italy 1954 201(8)

Ann Cornelisen

from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 209(8)

Maya Angelou

from Facts of Life 217(8)

Maureen Howard

from Mary 225(14)

Mary Mebane

from Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South 239(12)

Shirley Abbott

On the Morning After the Sixties from The White Album 251(4)

Joan Didion

Women and Blacks and Bensonhurst (1990) from The Astonishing World 255(16)

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

from Farewell to Manzanar 271(12)

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

from A Burst of Light 283(14)

Audre Lorde

from The Loony-Bin Trip 297(8)

Kate Millett

from Fierce Attachments 305(10)

Vivian Gornick

from Minor Characters 315(8)

Joyce Johnson

from Generations 323(6)

Lucille Clifton

Expectations from The Girl I Left Behind 329(18)

Jane O'Reilly

from The Woman Warrior 347(12)

Maxine Hong Kingston

from Claiming Breath 359(6)

Diane Glancy

from Sacred Cows...and Other Edibles 365(10)

Nikki Giovanni

from Carnal Acts 375(12)

Nancy Mairs

from An American Childhood 387(10)

Annie Dillard

from A Romantic Education 397(10)

Patricia Hampl

Deciding to Live Preface to Trash 407(8)

Dorothy Allison

from A Small Place 415(8)

Jamaica Kincaid

from Sweet Summer: Growing Up With and Without My Dad 423(16)

Bebe Moore Campbell

from Riding in Cars with Boys: Confessions of a Bad Girl Who Makes Good 439(12)

Beverly Donofrio

from Talking Back 451(8)

bell hooks

from Interviews with Writers of the Post-Colonial World 459(10)

Sandra Cisneros

from Lakota Woman 469(12)

Mary Crow Dog

from Black Ice 481(10)

Lorene Cary

from Road Song 491(14)

Natalie Kusz
Acknowledgments 505(3)
Works Cited 508