For Judith Shakespeare

From now on you will find 4JS in the acknowledgements of my published work. What does it mean? It means For Judith Shakespeare.

Back in March, I reread Virginia Woolf’s description of Judith Shakespeare in A Room of One’s Own.

She writes: ‘Let me imagine, since the facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith’ since ‘it would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare'. She would have ‘killed herself one winter's night and lies buried at some crossroads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle.’ Woolf encourages women to write, in all its forms. Why? So that should Judith be born again, she would stand a chance because ‘As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her’.

#4JS. To women. Write with passion and publish with pride for each of your writings can create the conditions for a different ending to Judith's story.