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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;">OK, I'll jump in! Although my house was full of Virginia Woolf's works as I was growing up (many of my paperback copies are inscribed with my mother's or sister's name), I never
read her until I was nearly one year out of college, living in Mannheim, Germany, for the year. I joined the library there and checked out
<span style="font-style: italic;">To the Lighthouse</span> one day, along with a stack of other things. In my tiny one-room "apartment," I read the entire book from start to finish in one sitting--mesmerized, intrigued, confused; I had never read anything like
it before. When I finished, I turned it over and began again and was hooked from then on. As Diana says, thank you, Virginia.<br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;" id="divRpF282343"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b> vwoolf-bounces+kristin_czarnecki=georgetowncollege.edu@lists.service.ohio-state.edu [vwoolf-bounces+kristin_czarnecki=georgetowncollege.edu@lists.service.ohio-state.edu]
on behalf of Diana Swanson [dswanson@niu.edu]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, August 26, 2013 2:42 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vwoolf] Encountering Virginia Woolf<br>
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<div>Hello Woolfians,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>What a great thread of conversation!</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I first read Virginia Woolf in my first year English class, called "Reading," at Amherst College in the fall of 1978. We were assigned
<em>A Room of One's Own</em>. It was the first time I read something and thought "I want to write like that." Of course, I could never "write like that" but my professor did say that my short essay on
<em>A Room</em> was "Woolfesque" or something to that effect. I loved the combination of humor, sarcasm, lyricism, intensity--and of course was electrified by the subject matter. I think Woolf's is probably still the most enlivening prose I've ever read. I
have a feeling, but don't know for sure, that <em>A Room</em> was put on the common reading list for all the first year English class sections by one of the new, young, women faculty, at least one of whom was denied tenure later and the other went on to someplace
else at some point. In my junior year, I got permission to write about <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em> in one of my English courses even though it was not on the syllabus.<br>
</div>
<div>After college, reading <em>Three Guineas</em> helped me decide whether and how to go to graduate school, to join that "procession of educated men."
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thank you, Virginia.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Diana</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div>Diana L. Swanson, Ph.D.</div>
<div>Associate Professor of Women's Studies & English<br>
Faculty Associate of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Studies</div>
<div>Faculty Associate of Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability, and Energy
<div>Northern Illinois University</div>
</div>
<div>DeKalb, IL 60115<br>
815-753-6611<br>
dswanson@niu.edu </div>
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<div><br>
>>> Eleanor McNees <Eleanor.McNees@du.edu> 8/23/2013 12:38 PM >>><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I've been reading these responses with interest as I think they would be great to share with students we're currently teaching. I honestly can't recall the first work by Woolf that I read, but I do remember that I decided not to take a
course on the Bloomsbury Group my first year in college in 1969 because I had never heard of that group! I know I began teaching Woolf first in the 1970s, specifically
<i>To the Lighthouse</i>, because I took high school students on a literary tour of the U.K., and we spent two nights in St. Ives. The characters in that novel and in her other works have remained with me for decades as I've aged and gained new perspectives
on them. That E.M. Forster questioned her ability to create truly vital characters has always puzzled me.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Best wishes,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eleanor</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:#c00000; font-size:12pt"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:#632423">Eleanor McNees</span></b></p>
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