“Home” is a loaded word, a complex idea. Imagining home, creating home, staying home, and leaving home—whether to go to work for the day or leaving a household or homeland for good—are all political acts for women. And the choices we make about the homes we create define us as women, mothers, partners, and citizens. In This Is the Place, thirty women writers explore the theme in personal essays about neighbors, marriage, kids, sentimental objects, homelessness, domestic violence, solitude, space, immigration, gentrification, geography, and more. In this session, select contributors will read from their essays and discuss the question that runs throughout the book: What makes a home? Margot Kahn, coeditor, is the author of the biography Horses That Buck. Kelly McMasters, coeditor, is the author of the memoir Welcome to Shirley and is an assistant professor of English at Hofstra University. Jennifer De Leon is the editor of Wise Latinas and was the One City One Story pick for the 2015 Boston Book Festival; she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Framingham State University. Sonya Chung is the author of the novels The Loved Ones and Long for This World; she teaches at Skidmore College. Is home the place where you “find” yourself? Join in the discussion with contributors to This Is the Place.
