I was fortunate to meet Barbara Field when we both presented several years ago at the Whidbey Island Writers’ Conference in Washington State. When I heard from Barbara about recent developments in her writing life, I was eager to share what she’s  been up to in joining new projects. The work she tells us about will capture your hearts, foster your enthusiasm and leave you committed the importance of our work as writers.

Sheila
Barbara, I am so pleased that you will be talking to Writing It Real members about your life in writing and promoting writing and how your background has connected you recently with two exciting projects, Afghan Women’s Writing Project  and The Op Ed Project, that expand women’s voices through writing. Before we get to your involvement in these projects, how would you describe your career to date?

Barbara
I was lucky and later desperate as a single mother, so I got to do all kinds of things. I wrote and edited for CBS about movies, Macy’s, Harcourt Brace, ad agencies, scientific entities. I freelanced, consulted, taught and currently do corporate communications and marketing for a university. But I’m always working on lots of projects.

Sheila
How did you become involved in a project in which US women writers helped girls in Afghanistan write poetry and stories? 

Barbara
I became a mentor for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project after reading about it a few times. Something resonated. It was an amazing experience. Some girls want to bring ice skating to Afghanistan, some want to run for office and change the way women are treated. We didn’t so much edit their writing as much as encourage their writing. You know, to empower them and remind them that their voices mattered, to keep writing.

Sheila
How did the mentoring work?

Barbara
Through the Internet. I can’t talk about details to protect the security of the young women, but it’s an incredible project started by a journalist named Masha Hamilton out of NYC, my hometown. There are some first names are on the website, but  there are no photos of of the women. A picture will run with a story, but it isn’t of the author.

Sheila
What are some insights you garnered from being involved with the program?

Barbara
We are so blessed that we can write about anything we want. We are so lucky to have the freedoms we do. These are girls married off at age 13 who don’t have a voice. Some were extremely educated, by the way. The motto of this writing project is: to tell one’s story is a human right. The women’s poems and short essays are available for reading on the project’s online magazine. You and members of Writing it Real have got to read their pieces. Writing It Real members can help in a big way by writing comments to encourage these women!

Sheila
I have gone to the site and from the first story, my heart was beating very fast. When a school girl is threatened by grown men for walking alone without a chaperone and fears for her life because she is carrying school books, which she must cover to disguise as if they are the Koran and no other books, I am sad. Then I am in awe when her mother, upon hearing her fear of being caught, says:

Look, my dear daughter our country has had lots of war and those women who are educated suffered a lot, so now if you want to be a literate woman like your mom and other Afghan women, then you should struggle a lot and not take care over these small issues. Instead, try to learn knowledge. Otherwise you will be like a blind person who can never see.

What courage! What commitment to a better life for women.

I like remembering this passage from a recent posting as well:

Now I remember my husband when he helps me in all aspects of my life, especially my writing. Every day when he comes home, his first question is, “Norwan, what did you write today?”

I remember his gift to me last year. Do you know what it was? Something wrapped in a nice red heart. It was a pen—but more than that. It was strength and inspiration.

A mother helping her daughter. A husband helping his wife. I am heartened when I learn about support women have for their words. What were some of the ways that your involvement impacted your life in writing?

Barbara
First, I want to say, please go to “The Tradition of Baad” by Mahnaz. It explains why being involved in this project changed my life in a major way. It explains why the essays about support from family express a minority of situations. And here’s another by her, “A Beautiful Woman,” written from a prompt I offered.

Sheila
I just read these two by Mahnaz.  I am indeed very saddened and feeling even more the value of this writing project. My hope is that person-to-person communication can change the world, that women’s rights will be strengthened because of voices calling out in writing that is unforgettable.

Being involved in this project must have had a huge impact on you as a writer.

Barbara
It changed my life in a major way. Here’s another piece written by Mahnaz Because I made a living as a writer or communications expert, I had put creative writing aside. My novel, The Deeper, The Bluer came out in 2000. But over the years, making a living, I put aside my love for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. I had studied with Kenneth Koch way back at Columbia, but hadn’t written or read poetry in 30 years. I mean, I kept reading novels over the years–many by my friends– but I was inspired, jolted really, by these brave Afghan women. I was knocked out by the power and immense beauty of their words. It’s like I put away a piece of my soul. The Afghan women’s writing brought me back to why I wrote in the first place: Writing is powerful.

Not only did I start writing again, but the UC San Diego Theater department contacted me and put on an amazing performance based on these women’s writings. Then a woman in California called me. She was helping fly an injured Afghan child here for medical care. It was dangerous. This kid lived in Taliban country. Through connections, I was able to put them in contact with local Afghan women in that region of California who spoke Pashto, knew where where the nearest mosque was and helped enormously.  

Sheila
A performance and medical assistance and your involvement started from helping individual women write their story. And even as you were mentoring in the Afghan women’s writing project, you had found your next project–it was about leadership and writing and being mentored so that women’s voices will be heard in the op-ed sections of newspapers, right?

Barbara
Yes. I was looking for an excuse to visit my extremely independent son at Stanford University. And I had been following an amazing project housed in the Stanford women’s center called The Op Ed Project. Then they moved headquarters to NY. I became their Regional Manager and brought their seminars to my area in Southern California.

Sheila
Whoa! Don’t leave us out of hearing about the good stuff! What is the project’s mission? Why did you get involved?

Barbara
The Op Ed Project teaches women to become thought leaders by writing op eds.  The seminars have been given at Yale, Yahoo, Facebook, Lehman Brothers, all over.

Katie Orenstein, the founder of The Op Ed Project, kept asking, “Who is writing and creating history here?” About 80% of op eds in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post are still written by men. There’s a real problem when 84% of TV pundits on Sunday morning talk shows,  83% of Congress and 85% of Hollywood producers are white males. A pretty big chunk of media is not created, discussed or directed by women (or by minority men either).

The project’s mission is to reach a tipping point of 15,000 op eds published by women. The founder realized a seminar wasn’t enough so participants who write op eds get matched for a year with phenomenal mentor-editors. That’s unheard of!

Katie Couric featured the project on CBS news in her segment “Couric’s Notebook.” You can see it on the project’s home page.  The belief is that the op eds are a gateway to help your career take off and the mentors are instrumental in helping participants do just that. You can read one participants account of the process and her success here. My intern just had her piece published on the Huffington Post and a recent member had her work in the LA Times and The Guardian.

Sheila
How do women get to attend these seminars?

Barbara
They’re given in NY, Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC, Los Angeles. Right now, I bring a few of the program’s seminars to San Diego. For our January seminar, some women flew in from as far away as North Carolina, Hawaii and Canada to take it. The next one day public course in San Diego is scheduled for Saturday, May 5. We only enroll 20 women and it runs from about $295-$450 for each participant. Register directly online. If you have questions, review the comprehensive site first and then write me at barbara@theopedproject.org. Over 2 ½ months in advance we have only seven slots open!

If you register online for another city’s seminar, I’d love for you to write me that you learned about the project from the interview with Barbara Field in Writing it Real.

Also, if you would like to bring a private seminar to your company, nonprofit or university, please write me. I have a demanding full-time day job, but want women to take this course!

Sheila
Your dedication to helping expand women’s voices so our thinking and opinions carry weight and shape history is inspiring.

Barbara
Thank you. But if you want to talk about inspiring, read the women’s stories. Learn from the website what happened to them after they published op eds in these major venues. These are women lawyers, scientists, execs, artists, nonprofit leaders, junior corporate types, students– all types of women who were offered jobs, board positions, judgeships, speaking gigs on CNN and many other fantastic opportunities.

Sheila
In the opening to your novel, The Deeper, The Bluer, your character asks: “Did you ever think that somewhere waiting for you was something important, maybe amazing?”

Barbara
It’s definitely my philosophy now. I’d say amazing things are out there, but maybe don’t wait so long. Go out and find them; do them now.

Sheila
Before we end, Barbara, I hear that you gave the keynote address at the annual University of San Diego’s Women’s Conference.  Tell us about the conference and your involvement there.

Barbara
I was so excited to be speaking. About 550 or 600 members of the faculty and staff attended. I hoped to be inspiring and kick a little butt. I talked about keeping momentum going, especially as a majority of staffers at our public university are women who are juggling many duties personally and professionally in a state with huge budget cuts to its universities and schools. Also, many of our faculty members are women in science who are dominated by men in that field. It wasn’t just fun to speak. Two women approached me with tears in their eyes, and many women said they indeed were inspired. As a result of the talk, two writing groups are already forming. We have 25,000 faculty and staff, but this is a beginning.

All in all, our voices matter, right?  The beauty, the power of the Afghan women’s writing, was beyond grammar, syntax and structure; it was getting in touch with the essence of writing. The Op Ed Project is not only about being a writer and writing an op ed, but also about connecting women writers to mentors who can help them blaze a trail to leadership. Both projects really expand women’s voices and teach that sometimes we need to ask for mentoring and other times give back and mentor. I am happy to be letting more people know about both projects.