Ms. Aligned 2: Women Writing About Men

The second in a series, MS. ALIGNED 2 is an anthology of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in which women writers explore male thinking, behavior, and identity. Included are statements by the authors in which they discuss their reasons for writing about men. The foreword is by Jill McCabe Johnson, an award-winning poet and the series editor of the University of Nebraska Gender Programs anthologies. In her foreword, she writes that the MS. ALIGNED authors have “portrayed more nuanced representations of the masculine experience that begins with the archetypal and mythological, but troubles it, complicates it, causes us to challenge our own fundamental beliefs against a more complex and realistic array of expression. The challenge is not in being able to portray what is especially or particularly male. The challenge lies in portraying fully realized males, including those aspects of personality somehow deemed ‘feminine.’” The introduction is by Kristiana Kahakauwila, a hapa writer of kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian), German, and Norwegian extraction. Her first book, THIS IS PARADISE: STORIES, was published by Hogarth in 2013. In her introduction, she writes, “This second anthology from MS. ALIGNED gives its readers fresh material—as much as these women writers are writing men, they are also women writing women and the female experience. In this act, they make a segmentation—of gender, experience, place, age—whole again...To read MS. ALIGNED 2 is to witness women writers writing forward—out of old tropes, expected ways of being, and into something fresh, memorable, filled with discovery.” Desmond Kon Zhicheng Mingdé, recipient of the Singapore Literature Prize, has also praised the book: "MS. ALIGNED 2 offers a stellar showcase. From an impassioned premise surfaces such a platter of beautiful surprises. The voices are distinct and diverse, the narratives all admirably rendered. The reader comes away with a soft wisdom. Of what it means to be relational. Of what it means to be complex, gendered beings navigating our heavy, exacting world. Fascinating and extraordinary!" Funded in part by the SEED IDEAS office of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, MS. ALIGNED 2 features sixteen contributors. A beautiful illustration by Guatemalan artist Súa Agapé appears on the cover. Published by El León Literary Arts of Berkeley, California.