March 8, 2007Press Release

Contact Person:

AnnMarie Ginella, Executive Director/Editor
annmarie@widow-speak.org
707-824-8030
Sebastopol, California
http://www.widow-speak.org

March to March - Writing 365 Days of Widows

“It was nice to talk to someone who was interested in my story. I don’t generally like to talk about myself. I’ve learned something from putting my thoughts into words.”
Jean Schulz, widow of cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz

March to March – Writing 365 Days of Widows, celebrates women all year by adding a daily story, poem, or image to the WidowSpeak archives. Furthering WidowSpeak’s mission of creating camaraderie and sharing resources among a world of widows, WidowSpeak publishes the stories of our widowed grandmothers, stateswomen, aunties, young mothers down the street, or in villages in Uganda.

AnnMarie Ginella and local ‘widows in the hood’ will be launching
365 Days of Widows at the Flynn St. Salon, in Sebastopol, from 2:00-4:00, March 18, 2007.  Music, poetry and art featuring widows will be followed by discussion and writing prompts.

Like motherhood and sisterhood, women weave widowhood into their lives. Whether shawled in white or veiled in black, widows’ stories span ages of wealths, rituals and cultures. WidowSpeak tells the stories of widows who are young, old, rich, poor, feared, honored, persecuted and voted in.

Yoko Ono, Candice Bergin, Jeannie Schulz, Cleopatra, Jacqueline Kennedy, Mary Bono, Mariane Pearl, Alice Toklas, Sonia Gandhi, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Barbara Sonneborn, Joan Didion and Coretta Scott King are widows we know. There are myriads of widows we don’t know.

“Since my new-found, unwanted, status of widow, my life has taken a turn for the surreal  - the way people talk to me, look at me, treat me. At WidowSpeak, I find a comfortable place to sit. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. Reading what widows have gone through has made me feel less strange and alone.”
                                       young widow, Judy Trejos, of San Diego