User:Hannemurphy/sandbox

additions to article for Meg Elison

Background: "grew up a military brat with the United States ARMY" where she "lived all over the country." At fourteen she began working to support herself.

She has lived in Missouri, Savannah, Nevada, North Carolina, Utah, Southern California, New York"

REFERENCE: 19 November 2019 Bi-Plus with Elizabeth and Meg Elison https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/meg-elison/id1480175925?i=1000456337648

Elison's other essays include short stories such as Writing With My Keys Between My Fingers"for Uncanny: A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy issue 32 2020 "

She is also winner of the 2021 Locus award for best novelette titled Big Girl Plus ...which contains fictional short stories.

Model article: From the Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's Tale

Draft Article: New article for The Book of the Unnamed Midwife"

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is post-apocalyptic feminist novel written by American author Meg Elison, published in 2014. This novel is the winner of the Philip K Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction. It is the first novel in The Road to Nowhere Trilogy.

The setting begins in San Francisco California after a fever has decimated the world's population. The story of the unnamed midwife is narrated in both personal diary, short narratives. The unnamed midwife travels north from San Francisco, North to East Oregon and the East to Utah, finally settling in Missouri. Through the midwifes travels, patriarchal confrontation propels the themes of the novel.

The unnamed midwife uses alias's throughout the novel. Alias's include: Karen, Alex, Dusty for most of the novel, and finally as Jane. Each transition of the midwife character reflects the following themes through the novel.

The novel explores themes of women's subjugation through sexual violence in post-apocalyptic United States, questions of gender identity, spectrum of sexuality and sexual practices, women using violence as a means of defense, women's purpose as natural submissive care takers. The narrator chooses to avoid the fate of most other women in the novel. Elison's novel depicts the fate of women as either sexual master or slave, the unnamed midwife refuses either of these outcomes, choosing to dress and act male as a form of protection.

In November 2020 the author, Meg Elison discussed the novel. The first in a the series "The Road to Nowhere," which Elison says was named with "dual meaning of utopia..it might be a good place, but its probably no place." Elison also recognized the influence of the Talking Heads song with the same name 'Road to Nowhere' as the series theme music." The second novel in the series is titled The Book of Etta (2017), followed by the finale The Book of Flora (2019).

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife sits with other feminist narratives sharing women's perspectives in apocalyptic settings, some examples of this narrative are Vox (2018), by Christina Dalcher; Bina Shak’sBefore She Sleeps (2018); The Water Cure (2018), by Sophie Mackintosh;Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu (2018); or also Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness (2020).

References:

Podcast: Bi+plus: Meg Elison on Apple Podcast

Elison, MegThe Book of the Unnamed Midwife 47North Publishing 2014

Mitchell, Renae. Maternity in the Post Apocalypse: Novelistic re-visions of dystopian Motherhood The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Inc 2022

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oG5OEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=meg+ellison+%22The+book+of+the+unnamed+midwife%22&ots=io3fbinFCd&sig=F8SKe6oKpsaz_4LcVPe_co5RmWE#v=onepage&q=meg%20ellison%20%22The%20book%20of%20the%20unnamed%20midwife%22&f=false

Machado-Jiménez,Almudena. 2021. Patriarcavirus, feminist dystopias and COVID-19: reflections on the phenomenon of gender pandemics Feminismos 38 p 371

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14198/fem.2021.38.14

https://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/116242/1/Feminismos_38_14.pdf

Additions for Meg Elison Article

Add to Bio: In an interview from November 9, 2019, Elison describers herself as "militarry brat" having grown up as a child of parents in the US Military, and moved around the United State.

Elison's other Short Stories Section

Shimmerzine. Elison, Meg 2018 Rapture Shimmerzine issue 44

Add: Feminist Essays for Uncanny: A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy issue 32 2020 "Writing With My Keys Between My Fingers