Books of interviews with women writers have proliferated since the early
1980s, but most focus on white women who come from and write about
the middle class. These collections tend to stress aesthetic rather than
political or social concerns, limiting themselves to questions about indi-
vidual texts, the creative process, and literary influences. Interviewers
rarely ask writers to talk about such topics as the politics of publishing or
sexism in book reviewing. And they usually ignore or downplay volatile
issues--racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, for example--even when
these are central to understanding the writers' works.

There have been exceptions. Collections that have dealt exclusively
with people of color, such as Claudia Tate important early work, Black
Women Writers at Work ( Continuum, 1983), or Laura Coltelli Winged
Words: American Indian Writers Speak ( University of Nebraska Press,
1992), in which she interviews women and men, blend aesthetic and
political concerns throughout. Collections pairing writers from similar
backgrounds in a discussion about literature, for instance, Writing Lives:
Conversations between Women Writers ( Virago, 1988), edited by Mary Chamberlain
, also manage to put the individual writers' works in a larger
political and social context.

Inspired by these good examples, I decided to interview a diverse group
of successful women writers about their lives, their work, their politics,
and the ways these interrelate. My criteria for choosing writers to inter-
view were straightforward. I wanted to talk with women of different

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