<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto"></SPAN> </div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: 16px; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; RIGHT: auto; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-STYLE: normal; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">Time to weigh in on behalf of the diaries. I knew Woolf's work only slightly when I went to England on a 6-month exchange in 1990. There I was in a Devon village, free of all responsibility, between careers, seeking new direction, open & curious. My host's bookshelves were dominated by economic history (his specialization), and old seafaring tales (his passion), but there among them was A Writer's Diary. I took it off the shelf & sat down with it - that was the start of everything. I went from there to the novels, diaries & letters & more, but to this day I always come back to A Writer's Diary for inspiration and renewed energy - the language, the observations, the insights, oh my! </SPAN></div>
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<DIV style="RIGHT: auto">I wrote about my experience, "Discovering England - Discovering Virginia Woolf," for the first encounters feature in the VW Bulletin mentioned earlier in this exchange. I've enjoyed all of the accounts about how people came to Woolf...</DIV>
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<div style="RIGHT: auto">Alice Lowe</div>
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<DIV class=hr style="FONT-SIZE: 0px; BORDER-TOP: #ccc 1px solid; HEIGHT: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; MARGIN: 5px 0px; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; LINE-HEIGHT: 0; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px" readonly="true" contenteditable="false"></DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> "atleswoolf@aol.com" <atleswoolf@aol.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> bkscott@mail.sdsu.edu; mcnar001@umn.edu <BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Cc:</SPAN></B> VWOOLF@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu <BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Friday, August 23, 2013 4:44 AM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [Vwoolf] Weighing in<BR></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV>Michael Cunningham tends to get knocked around a lot on this list, but that's where the interest in Woolf started for me. While in college, I'd read bits of <I>A Room of One's Own</I> in a literary theory anthology (where it was helpfully listed under "Feminism"), but very little else -- no one else taught her. In 1998, I read a rave review of <I>The Hours</I> in the gay magazine <I>The Advocate</I> a few months before it won the Pulitzer Prize, and I thought, "That sounds interesting." I went straight to the bookstore, bought it, and read it in one sitting. I knew at that instant that my life was now different. I walked over to my bookshelves -- about a year earlier, I'd bought a book-club four-pack paperback set of the Bell biography, <I>Mrs. Dalloway</I>, <I>To the Lighthouse</I>, and <I>A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas</I> which I'd not touched since. I picked up the Bell biography, began reading, and have
not stopped with Woolf since that moment. As fortune would have it, I was beginning graduate school around that time, so I was free to make her the focus of my work and my writing. So yes, all because of Cunningham. I recognize his flaws, but it's not all bad, folks. I've had plenty of students over the years begin reading Woolf after reading <I>The Hours</I>, which I think was Cunningham's point all along.</DIV>
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<DIV>Best,</DIV>
<DIV>Drew Shannon</DIV>
<DIV>College of Mount St. Joseph</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica; COLOR: black">-----Original Message-----<BR>From: Bonnie Scott <bkscott@mail.sdsu.edu><BR>To: Toni McNaron <mcnar001@umn.edu><BR>Cc: woolf list <VWOOLF@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu><BR>Sent: Thu, Aug 22, 2013 11:23 pm<BR>Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Weighing in<BR><BR>
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<DIV class=yiv2110601024aolReplacedBody style="WORD-WRAP: break-word">I was aware of Edward Albee's <U>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf </U> and during my freshman year in college I decided on a rainy afternoon to check her out in the library. I pulled <U>To the Lighthouse</U> off the shelf, sank down on the floor and began reading. Before I knew it the bell for the library closing was going off. My roommate was sure that something dire had happened to me, not just because I barely made curfew, but because I returned in a slightly dazed condition. I did my honors thesis in Woolf and Joyce, a combination I've never turned from.
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<DIV>Best,</DIV>
<DIV>Bonnie<BR>
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<DIV>On Aug 22, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Toni McNaron wrote:</DIV><BR class=yiv2110601024Apple-interchange-newline>
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<DIV>Vara asks other of us to say how we became captivated by Woolf. I was in graduate school in Madison at the University of Wisconsin, working on Renaissance (as we called it then) literature. I had never even heard of Virginia Woolf. A woman to whom I was entirely attracted asked me if I read her and I tried not to answer. I went right to the library and got /To the Lighthouse/ because the object of my crush had mentioned that title. I was completely stunned and amazed and just kept reading. As soon as I had a little wiggle room as a professor, I began teaching her to other young people who didn't know who she was. The relationship with the woman only lasted 7 years, but my connection to Virginia continues to grow as I continue to age.<BR><BR>Toni<BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Vwoolf mailing list<BR><A href="" rel=nofollow>Vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu</A><BR><A href=""
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<DIV>Bonnie Kime Scott, Ph. D.</DIV>
<DIV>Professor Emerita of Women's Studies</DIV>
<DIV>San Diego State University</DIV>
<DIV><A href="" rel=nofollow>bkscott@mail.sdsu.edu</A></DIV>
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