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Women Live Magazine
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Women Live Magazine
A Collection of writing and illustrations by women about their lives
Women Live was a quarterly national magazine of writing and artwork by women about their lives, founded by editor, Gill Horitz, in partnership with producer and designer, Ruth Hecht.
Each contributor’s writing or visual art work was presented in the context of the woman’s life, with autobiographical introductions, and additional commentary by the writers and artists on the impact on their lives of making art.
A co-operative was formed to develop and manage the production of the magazine. Six issues were published from Autumn 1987 to Summer 1989.
Emma Thompson:
“So much of women’s lives goes past undocumented and unsung it is very important for there to be a forum in which women can literally describe their experiences. Our minds are spiritually very close, it seems to me, but our experiences completely disparate and fragmented. We have no history. Women Live is a way of making it.”
Helen Franks, Guardian, August, 1989:
‘Certainly Women Live is like no other women’s magazine, There is no cookery or fashion or advice column, or even book reviews. What it consists of is personal history, diaries, poems about family relations, love, sex, and childhood. Every contributor provides a brief self-description plus sometimes a longer explanation of why or how the piece cam to be conceived and written.
Many women’s magazines and newspapers carry women’s personal stories which are often moving and sometimes harrowing but never the issue-full. Women Live has more in common with the worthy offerings that came out of the consciousness raising efforts of the women’s movement in the Seventies, though mainly without militancy.”
British Book News:
This is an intimate publication that will be of interest to students of women’s studies and of documentary uses of the arts, and to the general feminist reader,
Morning Star:
“Women Live gives a matchless opportunity for ordinary women to write about their lives.”
Spare Rib:
“This is a women’s reality and creativity expressed with startling directness. Women Live insists that not only is the personal political: it’s a necessity.”
Orbis:
‘Well – balanced and honest, this magazine does not fall into the feminist trap of ‘reverse discrimination’. Articles and stories are straight-forward, poems of high standard; production excellent; selection covers a wide spectrum of attitudes and beliefs.’
In 1988, Women Live was shortlisted for a Woman in Publishing Pandora Award.
A collection of Women Live publications can be found in The Women’s Library, reference/reading room in London.
Contributors included:
Ann Born, Astra, Carolyn Heilbrun, Diana Gittins, Dorothy Nimmo,
Elsa Corbluth, Gladys Mary Coles, Helen Flint, Jill Dawson, Jo Spence, Carol Anne Davis, Carole Spearing McCauley, Caroline Born, Curtise Monk, Dee May, Esther Hodge, Esther Jones, Folake Shoga, Gladys Mary Coles, Irene Redish, Janet Edmeades, Janet Pemberton, Jo Verrent, Joan Michelson, Lesley Saunders, Marguerite Morgan, Maria Tolly, Matilda Harrison, Natalie D’Arbeloff, Pat Gregory, Peggy Poole, Rachael Field, Rebecca O’Rourke, Rita Kegan, Tierl Thompson, Tina Fulker, Viv Quillin