Sifting the Feminine: Essays on a Woman’s Body examines how we define and understand femininity in relation to how we consider and treat women’s bodies. Through a collection of personal, lyric, and flash essays, Ashley Anderson explores how illness, particularly polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), manifests differently and affects the relationship between women, their bodies, and the world. In retaliation against a history of scrutiny, Sifting the Feminine upends the idea that our bodies are always within our own control. Meditating on illness, healthcare, social media, storytelling, clothing, various forms of violence, and popular culture, Sifting the Feminine seeks to understand why women’s bodies that challenge societal and cultural expectations of femininity are routinely disregarded in a world where no two bodies, regardless of gender, exist in the same way.

Author Biography

ASHLEY ANDERSON has had essays, short stories, and scholarship appear in Quarter After Eight, Permafrost, Newfound, Tahoma Literary Review, Wraparound South, SLAB, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, and other publications. Sifting the Feminine: Essays on a Woman’s Body was a semifinalist for the 2022 Santa Fe Writers Project’s Literary Arts Awards. Anderson has worked as an editorial assistant for The Cincinnati Review and is a memoir reader for Split Lip Magazine. She holds a PhD in English with a creative writing emphasis from the University of Missouri–Columbia, as well as degrees from the University of Cincinnati, Kent State University, and Ashland University. She currently teaches at the University of Missouri and lives in Columbia, where she makes a lot of crafts, drinks a lot of coffee, and listens to a lot of Taylor Swift.

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