Find information about submitting your own widow story or to contribute to WidowSpeak in other ways.

Read the latest releases from WidowSpeak

  Widow Empowers Widows

All She Wants Is To Empower Fellow Widows
Run Date: 04/10
The Citizen

If I had a difficult time to get my rights yet I’m educated. I can’t imagine how it can be for those not even familiar with their rights? That is when I decided to step in and help. More >

   
  Carol Muske-Dukes

In a Heartbeat, by Carol Muske-Dukes
Run Date: 11/01
Life Story, The Oprah Magazine

"CAROL MUSKE-DUKES was married to actor David Coleman Dukes until his sudden death - a situation eerily foreshadowed in her novel Life After Death. A year later, she ponders the unlit intersection where art and life converge." More >

Also:
A Poet in Hollywood
Run Date: 02/10/09
The Huffington Post

"A couple of months ago, I received a call from the Governor's office, informing me that I had been appointed California Poet Laureate. Soon after, I was invited to write a brief essay for the Los Angeles Times about my appointment." More >

     
  Vrindavan, India, Widow

Ostracized Vrindavan, India, Widows
Arwa Damon, CNN.com

"VRINDAVAN, India (CNN) -- Ostracized by society, thousands of India's widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces." More >

Also:
India Widows
Run Date: 06/03/07
Trevor Bormann, Foreign Correspondent

"TREVOR BORMANN: On a tributary of the Ganges River, pilgrims gather to venerate a God. In Hindu teachings, Krishna offers solace to downtrodden women. This town has more than its share. Thousands of women young and old have come to the childhood home of Krishna for one purpose – to live out their days in worship in the hope that death will come soon.

DR MOHINI GIRI: She’s relegated… she becomes a zero - and all her powers are lost." More >

     
  Growing a Legacy

Growing a Legacy
Run Date: 01/17/09
Charmian Smith, Otago Daily Times

"The history of wine contains many stories of notable widows who take their late husbands' wine companies to greater heights, and one of the most remarkable ones at present is that of Jane Hunter, of Hunter's Wine in Marlborough." More >

     
  AnnMarie Ginella

Embracing Widowhood
Run Date: 10/29/08
Kristin Gillette, Lifetime.com

"In 2005, still suffering from a self-diagnosed case of 'woe-is-me syndrome,' Ginella launched an online literary project called WidowSpeak. The website is a forum for widows to share their stories through essays and blogs. 'It's been compelling to hear their stories, to hear the strength and universalism of them,' she says. 'They deal with love, moving on and raising children.'" More >

     
  Widows with Half Lives

Encounter with those who live half-lives
Run Date: 09/09/08
Bonnie Konyak, The Morung Express

"I had never come across the word, 'Half-widow' until I found myself in Kashmir valley but in just a couple of days of my stay, I had become painfully free with the word. The word, Half-widow was used to refer to the women of this terror torn valley, whose husbands had one day left home and never made it back home." More >

     
  Helping War Widows on Road Ahead

Helping War Widows on Road Ahead
Run Date: 08/24/08
Tim Arango, The New York Times (may require NYT access account)

"When your husband dies at war, the things he carried show up in six black boxes.

Each pair of socks, each T-shirt, each love letter is inventoried on 20 sheets of paper. Everything has been washed, so when you breathe in the scent of a shirt, it doesn’t smell like him.

When a soldier dies, grief is followed by immersion in the somber routines and protocols of a military death." More >

     
  Raj Loomba

The Billionaire With a Heart
Run Date: 03/03/08
India Post News Service

Raj Loomba, founder of the Pushpawati Loomba Trust, is profiled through the many valuable events and charities his organization continues to tirelessly promote for widows and their children. More >

See Internaltional Widows Day

   
  Susan Retik and Patti Quigley riding in a car

For Widows, There's Life Beyond Sept. 11
Run Date: 03/01/08
by Wesley Morris

Susan Retik and Patti Quigley of the organization Beyond the 11th are the subject of a new documentary titled Beyond Belief directed by Beth Murphy. More >

See Beyond the 11th

   
  Diana Engstrom

Widow Trying to Stay in U.S. After Husband Was Killed in Iraq
Run Date: 03/01/08
by Scott Richardson

Diana Engstrom, native to Kosovo, fights the controversial "widow penalty" clause to remain a U.S. citizen after her American born husband is killed in Iraq. More >

   
  Iraq, A Nation of Widows

Iraq, A Nation of Widows
Run Date: 03/29/07
NBC News

"Social constraints in Iraq prevent a lot of women from earning money – the men put food on the table by going out to work while women take care of children and the home. But by leaving the house, men are often more exposed to the dangers of car bombs, kidnappings and assassinations. As a result, most of the victims of violence in Iraq are men – leaving the women to dress in black and mourn them..." More >

   
  AnnMarie Ginella and sons

Sonoma West News – Giving Widows a Voice
Run Date: 12/15/06
by Patricia M. Roth

WidowSpeak and AnnMarie Ginella are profiled by Sonoma West Times & News. More >

   
  Press Democrat icon

Angelina Jolie to play Marianne Pearl
Run Date: 09/22/06
by Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, whose relationship was spawned on a film set, will again work together — this time on a movie based on the life of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan. More >

   
  Press Democrat icon

Director, Deepa Mehta, Earns Acclaim for Water, a film about "widow wastage", set in 1938 in an ashram in India.

   
  Press Democrat icon

AI Jazeera Widow, Dima Tahboub, Files Lawsuit Against Bush
Run Date: 07/12/06
Democracy Now

Dima Tahboub, the widow of Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayyoub is bringing a lawsuit against the Bush administration for her husband's death. He was killed in April 2003 when the US military bombed the Al Jazeera offices in Baghdad. We speak with Dima Tahboub and her attorney. More >

   
 

Ann Coulter Criticizes 9/11 Widows
Run Date: 06/07/06
by Associated Press

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused commentator Ann Coulter of making a “vicious, mean-spirited attack” on outspoken 9/11 widows whom the television pundit described as “self-obsessed” and enjoying their husbands' deaths. More >

   
  Patsy Spier

American Widow, Patsy Spier, Seeks Justice from Congress
Run Date: 05/05/03
By Jonathan E. Kaplan

Rick and Patsy Spier, American workers in Indonesia, were returning from a picnic in an orchid field last August when the life of one was ended and the life of the other was changed forever. More >

   
  Press Democrat icon

Making a Community of Widows
Run Date: 07/02/06 Press Democrat
by Susan Swartz

A column in the July 2006 Press Democrat profiles AnnMarie Ginella and the Widow Speak support Web site project. Columnist Susan Swartz contrasts the "sleazy" remarks Ann Coulter concocts against 9/11 widows with the reality of celebrity and everyday widows who cope daily with pain and loss. More >

   
 

International Widows Day
June 23rd 2006 - International Widows Day, was announced first by Cherie Blair at a House of Lords luncheon on May 26th given by the Loomba Trust, and formally announced at the United Nations on October 21st, 2005, in the presence of Kofi Annan and Cherie Blair. More >

   
 

Black Widow with Gun

'Black Widow' Fears Surround a Russian Verdict
Run Date: 02/06/05 WeNews correspondent
by Mariya Rasner

Female Chechen suicide bombers have committed atrocious violence and roused fear in Russia and one Chechen woman was convicted recently of terrorism. Her lawyers, however, argue that she was framed by authorities eager to catch a "black widow." More >

 

 
 

India's Outcast Widows Have New Havens
Run Date: 04/18/04 WeNews Correspondent
by Uma Girish

Widows in India still undergo ritual humiliations and extreme ostracism; conditions that several new programs are seeking to redress. More >

 

 
 

Una Parry Boyce: Champion of Australian War Widows
Run Date: 11/27/03 The Sydney Morning Herald
by Mick Boyce

Una Boyce's first major challenge in life came in her mid-30s, at the end of World War II. Her husband, Norman, died of his wounds in 1946, and her parents died the following year. Her only sibling, her older brother, Raoul, had died in an accident before the war, so she was alone in the world with three children under six. More >