Alicia Ostriker on Virginia Woolf

“(What women writers, contemporary or historical, well-known or obscure, do you count among your most important literary influences? And is anxiety of influence a notion that applies equally to women writers?) AO: I could name dozens, but here are a few:...Among prose writers, Virginia Woolf above all.”

“Our thinking does tend to be dominated—colonized, you might say—by the history of patriarchal thought and language, but it is still possible to think independently if you make up your mind to do it and be vigilant. Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own promises that “if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think,” we might change the world.”