"After Sappho" by Selby Wynn Schwartz
A while ago, I went to a wonderful literary event with Selby Wynn Schwartz, about her book "After Sappho." I have not yet read the book (it's waiting for me on my bookshelf), but the talk stuck with me.
The book consists of vignettes of women's stories through history. It was comforting to listen to the care Schwartz had put into going through the fragments these women left behind, giving them new life by connecting them to the fragments of women across temporal boundaries. If someone were to pick up the fragments of me long after my time, this is how I would like someone to treat them.
I also thought about which fragments are left behind for others to find. Schwartz talked about how part of her project with the book had been to reverse the space given to men and women on the stage of history. The women she writes about were creatives, artists, poets, and writers. Being able to create is in itself a sort of privilege, since you need resources in order to do this. In addition, is it not easier to find fragments of creatives? There will be more fragments if you put something out into the world.