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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 <em>A Room of One's Own</em> 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 <em>The Hours</em> in the gay magazine <em>The Advocate</em> 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, <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em>, <em>To the Lighthouse</em>, and <em>A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas</em> 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 <em>The Hours</em>, 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="color: black; font-family: arial,helvetica; font-size: 10pt;">-----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>
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<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="aolReplacedBody">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>
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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>
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Toni<br>
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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 removedlink__1556751547__href="mailto:bkscott@mail.sdsu.edu">bkscott@mail.sdsu.edu</a></div>
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