Here are the people I've contacted so far.
A while back I commented on a review of Gone With the Wind by Jillian, a book blogger, on A Room of One's Own. She responded pretty quickly with some great insights on Scarlett's character (I quoted her in a previous blog post). I want to talk to Jillian more now that I have some more concrete claims. I think (well, I hope) that Jillian might be interested in linking GWTW and women's experience online, since she loves GWTW (she's currently doing a reading project on Margaret Mitchell) and she's a blogger herself.
I emailed some professors who had courses that included GWTW. Professor Luesebrink, a teacher of a Popular Literature class, emailed me back!...But she didn't have much to say in response to my questions. I had asked her about the popularity of GWTW and she said that she didn't really know much about it. I asked her how she thought the 1939 film influenced the way people viewed the story (the question I was most interested in hearing the answer to) and she said she thought it influenced people, but she couldn't really say how. Ironically, she suggested that I do a web search...which is how I found her syllabus! It was cool to get a response from her, though.
This week, I decided to contact some women that I already know who have used the Internet as a force for good. I sent a Facebook message to Susan Taylor, who is changing lives through her business, Living Equilibrium. She got back to me right away with some AWESOME responses on both the good and the bad of the Internet. She also gave me permission to share her responses here, so I'll have a blog post about that soon!
I also messaged Kathy Mellor, founder of Unleashing Your Voice. I'm hoping to get her insights, because she has been really successful at using the Internet to teach classes, have webinars, schedule conferences, etc., and she has always really inspired me.
I found a really cool website recently called She Writes, a site for women writers. After I joined, several people posted comments on my profile welcoming me to the site and offering help if I needed any. (That by itself is great proof of women's desire to reach out and help each other!) So I'm planning to contact all of these kind people. I posted a forum on the site asking a few questions about how the Internet has helped people--one response already! Pretty short and succinct, but still great. We'll see if anyone else responds to the forum.
Holly, my cohort, found a website specifically geared toward women bloggers, BlogHer. After a little wandering around on the website I found the stories of the team and the founders--all of them have done big things in the media world! I'm planning to contact the founders Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page, and Jory Des Jardins (hey, if a student could get a response from Stanley Fish, then I might get a response from them!). That also took me to the International Women's Media Foundation...which looks fantastic! I'm going to try contacting the members of the board.
There's also a really cool website by singer Hilary Weeks called BillionClicks that Whitney found for me. I want to see if I can contact Hilary Weeks about this cool experience and see what else she has to say about inspiring and helping each other through the Internet. (Again, if someone can get a response from Stanley Fish...)
I found a ton of fanfiction on GWTW on FanFiction.net. I'm going to sift through and find the more popular stories and try contacting the authors.
I've also emailed several of the (female) authors of the blogs I follow to get their input. So far, I haven't gotten anything back. I'm planning on finding lots of blogs to and seeing what the authors have to say.
I'm excited about talking to all these people. I have gotten a lot more brave about social discovery! After all...the worst that can happen is that they don't answer and think I'm a doofus (which I'm sure they're too nice to think anyway)...and since it's the Internet, I'll never have to talk to them again!
(Yes, that's the way I convince myself to hit "send" on my many scary emails.)
Suggestions welcome and appreciated. :)
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