In Walks a Woman

In his famous 1841 essay, “Self Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be great is to be misunderstood.”  Emerson was a great writer, but to think he accomplished that all by himself would be a significant misunderstanding of how self reliant he really was. In his brilliant study of five female Transcendentalist thinkers, Dr. Randall Fuller pulls back the curtain to show that behind Emerson was his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, who s...

Mary Roach has created a nonfiction writing lane all her own, and in her 8th book, she embarks on a world-wide tour of the scientific quest to replace pretty much every part of the human body.  Her book, Replaceable You⁠, came out this month--April 2026--and it's already a bestseller. While she was visiting Lawrence, Kansas, on a trip sponsored by the Lawrence Public Library, Mary sat down with Sonja and Vanessa f...

If you keep losing, what if the game is to blame?  If women keep falling, could it be that society itself is at fault?  That, in itself, is a subversive question in 2026--but even more so in late 19th century England. In his 1891 novel, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy makes it abundantly clear that religion and society’s complete absorption of religious ideas of virginity is 100% to blame.   

Sonja and Vanessa give you a liv...

Despite not originally planning this short story for our “Fallen Women” season, in a weird way, it may fit…Spoilers, ahoy!

If you have not read Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story, “The Lottery,” go treat yourself to a very special reading experience.  It will take you just a few minutes, and it’s one of the greatest short stories EVER.  

Then, join Sonja and Vanessa to learn the origins of this legendary story. Was it based on real e...

There will be SPOILERS, so if you’ve gotten this far in life without hearing about the ending to this novel o' novels, don’t push your luck further:  go block off a month to read it, and then hit play!

Sonja and Vanessa are thrilled to welcome their dear friend, Rev. Heather Coates, who fell in love with Russian literature, and was eager (willing?) to re-read Tolstoy’s 1878 (in full book form) novel about a love affair that ...

Spoiler alert!!! Many literary-curious readers have Flaubert’s 1857 debut novel, Madame Bovary, in their TBR stack.  If that’s you, circle back to us after you’ve read this landmark of realism. 

This episode offers a concise Flaubert biography, a sense of why this novel is considered important in the context of literary history, and whether or not you might want to read it.  In terms of the fallen-woman narrative, we explore the...

Sonja and Vanessa have never gone to the movies together.  They made their debut screening Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE BRIDE! (2026).  This review does contain SPOILERS, so go see the film first.  We discuss this visually stunning movie that is kinda punk, kinda comic book, kinda Bonnie & Clyde, kinda 1930’s musical, kinda Natural Born Killers, kinda Mel Brooks, kinda The Purple Rose of Cairo, kinda…well, you get the idea. It is a ...

What’s it like to live as a fallen woman in a small town?  We’ll fill you in, so SPOILERS AHOY! Hester Prynne, protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, is 100% a fallen woman, and that exact term comes up in the novel. If you had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in high school (and if you live in the United States, you probably couldn’t escape it), remember that it’s good to face your fears.  Let’s hold hands and be brave...

This review has something for everyone.  If you hated it, we got you.  If you loved it, we got you.  Sonja and Vanessa don’t agree on everything, and this is one of those things.  Settle in and cheer for your side, and then close it out with a hug and gratitude for conversations in which we can say what we truly feel, not agree, and yet not go to war over it.  

Along the way, Sonja asks for a dehumidifier, and Vanessa makes some goo...

If you’re into Women’s History, you will LOVE this episode.  Dr. Sarah Bell, Director of the newly-renovated Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, Kansas, joins IWAW and shares fascinating stories of three Kansas women:  Clarina Nichols, Annie Diggs, & Mamie Dillard.  

In the 19th century, the story of women was supposed to take place–exclusively–in the “home,” and yet, everything outside the home profoundly affected women.  T...

Please Note that this episode contains spoilers and discussion of sexual assault.

“You have to get through the first 500 pages, and then you can’t put it down,” said no one ever…except Sonja about Clarissa, the longest novel in the English language. 

In the mid 18th century, Samuel Richardson was living in a world that strongly believed a woman should marry the man who “ruined” her–even if the act was not consensual.  Clariss...

Shakespeare’s late 16th century play, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, is a perfect literary work to illustrate the dynamic of a fallen woman.  The accusation.  The shame.  The desire for retribution.  The ruined family.  The confident accuser.  But this story, being a comedy, allows all rifts to heal, and everyone leaves happy, except for the villain, who–surprise, surprise–is literally a bastard...born of a fallen woman. 

Nothing we r...

Candice Millard shares how she learned to do deep research and the leap of faith she took to land her dream job. She explains how she knows which topics she can develop into books, including how she came across the idea for her next historical study. Millard also shares some teasers about her next book that will thrill you if you like women's stories and a bit of wartime intrigue. Click play now: this is such a special intervie...

If you have not read any Traci Brimhall, you’ve missed out on seeing through the eyes of someone who somehow–almost magically, at points–sews disparate parts together:  grief and joy, loss and abundance, science and poetry.

Yes, we take her brave and incandescent 2024 collection, LOVE PRODIGAL, as our starting point, and yes, this episode is about poetry, but that’s not all:  it’s a truly fulfilling conversation about the power of ...

Yes, you kinda have to be LIKE a virgin because, really, who knows if there is such a thing as REAL virginity?  Hanne Blank, historian and author of VIRGINITY:  THE UNTOUCHED HISTORY (2007), certainly makes a girl question the whole story–and virginity IS a story, not a biological fact.

If you haven’t heard of Blank’s thoroughly researched, sharply-written and entertainingly wry history of virginity, treat yourself to a great re...

Please Note:  The internet was not playing nice on the day we interviewed Polly, and though we tried several strategies, we could not totally resolve some technical difficulties.  That being said, as you listen, you’ll hear that Polly’s warm authenticity and her lovely personality just totally outshine the tech issues.  

No woman totally escapes the fact that she lives in a body made for making other humans.  Whether she wants to ha...

Spoilers…but hey, if you don’t know what TWILIGHT is, come out from the rock you call home and join us for a lively and insightful conversation with our special guest, Dr. Giselle Anatol, editor of the 2011 collection of critical essays, BRINGING LIGHT TO TWILIGHT. Dr. Anatol has provided popular texts and the legacy of the vampire important scholarly attention, and we’re incredibly lucky to have her in the studio to talk about the...

Warning:  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!

After you have read VICTORIAN PSYCHO–a novel that made NPR's Books We Love 2025 List for “seriously good writing”--come back and listen to a lively run down of the historical background that Feito weaves into her narrative.  There’s so much of it that we can’t begin to cover it all in an hour! Feito brilliantly conjures the Victorian social landscape, and she does it all via...

Warning:  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!

Get lost vampires: there are some even scarier monsters in the Gothic-sphere. They live in High Place, the mysterious, ramshackled (...and seemingly undulating) house at the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Best-Selling 2021 novel, MEXICAN GOTHIC.  

Join IWAW this week as Sonja shares some deep and fascinating research into Mexican history, European Victorians’ cultural fears, compe...