Joanna Scutts on How We Find—and Lose—Women Writers
Exhumations and Revelations, from Zora Neale Hurstonto Bette Howland
JOANNA SCUTTS
May 13, 2019
How does a woman writer get lost—and found? Brigid Hughes’ story of rediscovering the Chicago writer Bette Howland follows a now-familiar path of chance encounter, pursuit, and recovery. A few years ago, on the dollar cart of a used bookstore, Hughes found a copy of Howland’s 1974 memoir W-3, spurring her to track down the author’s son, then uncover a trove of unpublished writing—selections of which she published in A Public Space, the literary journal she edits, in 2015. Now, the journal is launching a books division with a collection of Howland’s stories, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, titled after the novella that’s a highlight of the book.
