The twenty-three distinguished writers included in From Curlers to Chainsaws: Women and Their Machines invite machines into their lives and onto the page. In every room and landscape these writers occupy, gadgets that both stir and stymie may be found: a Singer sewing machine, a stove, a gun, a vibrator, a prosthetic limb, a tractor, a Dodge Dart, a microphone, a smartphone, a stapler, a No. 1 pencil and, of course, a curling iron and a chainsaw.
From Curlers to Chainsaws is a groundbreaking collection of lyrical and illuminating essays about the serious, silly, seductive, and sometimes sorrowful relationships between women and their machines. This collection explores in depth objects we sometimes take for granted, focusing not only on their functions but also on their powers to inform identity.
For each writer, the device moves beyond the functional to become a symbolic extension of the writer’s own mind—altering and deepening each woman’s concept of herself.
ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsHearth and HomeNorma Tilden - Maytag Washer, 1939Joyce Dyer - My Mother’s SingerPsyche Williams-Forson - If You Can’t Stand the Heat: Ruminations on the Stove from an African American WomanRebecca McClanahan - Sad-Iron, Glad-IronJoy Castro - GripBedroom and Birthing RoomE. J. Levy - Of VibratorsJennifer Cognard-Black - The Hot ThingEmily Rapp - Beautiful Monster: Life with a Prosthetic LimbMonica Frantz - Midwife Hands, Mother HandsFarm, Lawn, Hill, and WoodMary Swander - Tsantas and the Mind-Expanding Power of a Small MachineMary Quade - Old Iron: A RestorationMaureen Stanton - All Flesh Is GrassKaren Salyer McElmurray - DrivenAna Maria Spagna - More Than NoiseStage and WorldDebra Marquart - The Microphone EroticElizabeth MacLeod Walls - I, PhoneMelissa A. Goldthwaite - Body, Camera, SelfDiana Salman - Lebanese AirwavesMonica Berlin - Remembered Is Misremembered, Then TurnsThe Writer's StudioJen Hirt - Swingline NineSue William Silverman - The QwertyistKaren Outen - On Typing and SalvationNikky Finney - Inquisitor and Insurgent: Black Woman with Pencil, SharpenedContributors
