"Shakespeare’s Sister” is an oblique reference to Virginia Woolf ’s 1929 essay “A Room of One’s Own,” in which the British writer imagines that the Bard had an equally talented sister named Judith. With little opportunity and few protections, Judith meets a tragic end, despite her innate brilliance. Woolf seeks to prove a point: that for women to write, they need the space and time to put pen to paper. Today, several writers’ retreats and residencies for women—such as Hedgebrook, Storyknife, and the Torch Literary Arts Retreat—have been established in recognition that some women benefit from time away from quotidian responsibilities to conceive and nurture new writing. But what happened to women they occupy the center of the page.
