About

FENWOMEN borrows its name from Mary Chamberlain’s Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village first published by Virago Press in 1975. In Fenwomen, Chamberlain chronicled the lives of several generations of women from one village in the Cambridgeshire fens, — their sense of belonging (or not), community, labour and social isolation — as well as their relationship to their surroundings. Shrouded in a mythology of remoteness, this region is perceived to be on the fringes of society and culture; fringes, which owing to coastal erosion, are in a constant state of flux.

The event series began as a response to Chamberlain's text, but each iteration roams further from her initial proposition, drawing together writers, artists and musicians who form a rich and varied reimagining not just of the fenlands but of the entire region and beyond. And although these writers roam far, they share an intention: to disrupt conventional notions of place-based writing. 

Each event is loosely themed and forms a chapter on the website, featuring contributions by some of the country's best writers, and building to a body of work for a print anthology in the coming years.

A Manifesto

FENWOMEN, centuries of them, conceives of itself as an ever evolving process rather than a structure…

a process of gathering voices from across East Anglia and inviting others in

a process of gleaning materials from the periphery and frayed edges of language — what man and machine fails to reap

a process of galvanising an audience and a community of writers and readers

a process of commissioning new works and encouraging works in progress

a process of envisioning a different literary landscape for the region

a process of platforming new writing, writers

a process of inviting others in and creating cultural and regional exchange

a process of hybridisation, imagining literature beyond the page, and words — in music, film and visual arts.

a process of resistance, akin to the Fen Tigers

a process of identifying with women, beyond gender conventions

Rose Higham-Stainton

Rose Higham-Stainton is a writer and critic based in Norfolk and runs the project FENWOMEN. Her work is held in the Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths College and published internationally by the likes of LA Review of Books, Texte Zur Kunst, Artforum, The White Review and Art Monthly. She has contributed to artists' monographs, written several chapbooks and Limn the Distance is her first full-length book, published by JOAN.