Through her use of the scholarly personal narrative and braided essay form, McGowan weaves strands of rhetoric with creative writing, navigating complex themes with academic rigor and emotional introspection. Her blend of equal parts humor, gravitas, and scholarship invites readers to explore the complexities of being a woman in a male-dominated world while looking at how writers might use coping mechanisms and transgressive workarounds, from code-switching to storytelling.
With critical analyses of feminist discourse and a roadmap for navigating the ever-evolving landscape of gender politics, the essays in this book challenge us to rethink traditional thinking about gender and equality. Writing is Revision is a call to action, an ode to the power of the written word for anyone interested in feminism and literature.
Acknowledgements
PART 1: Strands
1 What I Mean When I Talk about Womens Lives
2 Literary Resistance
3 A Fight for Truth
4 A Fight for Words: Lesprit de lescalier
5 Descanso
6 My Mothers Voice
7 Wheel in the Sky
8 Writing Is Revision
9 Negative Capability
PART 2: Construction
10 Primary Sources: My Fiction as Creative Dialectic
1 Crafting Truths
2 Close Readings
11 Coda
Index
Cate McGowan, Ph.D. (2023), M.F.A. (2003), has published two books of fiction, True Places Never Are (Moon City Press, 2015) and These Lowly Objects (Gold Wake Press, 2020), and a poetry collection, Sacrificial Steel (Driftwood Press, 2025).
