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Tillie Olsen: A Heart In Action, a New Documentary About the Writer and Feminist, to be Screened at Mills College
Oakland, CA-January 25, 2008. A new documentary on Tillie Olsen, feminist and award winning author, "Tillie Olsen: A Heart in Action," will be shown on Wednesday, February 6 at 6:30 pm in Lucie Stern 100 at Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA. Admission is free and open to the public. Seating is limited. Previous screenings of the film at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland have sold out. Hershey will answer questions following the screening. She will be introduced by Mills alumna (Class of '94) Rebekah Edwards, the granddaughter of Tillie Olsen and a lecturer in the Mills English Department. "Tillie Olsen's impassioned voice against the oppression of women inspired the voices of a new generation. For Olsen, art and humanity were one; her life was her work of art," said Mills President Janet L. Holmgren. Olsen received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Mills College in 1995. Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1912, Olsen died in 2007 at the age of 94. A Depression-era high school dropout, Olsen made public libraries her college. She worked as a waitress and secretary for 20 years while raising four daughters. Olsen was nearly 50 years old when her first book, Tell Me a Riddle, a collection of short stories, was published. Its title story won the coveted O. Henry Prize. Silences, her groundbreaking book of essays, was dedicated to historically silenced people-women, persons of color, and the working class-whose potential as writers was consumed in the hard, everyday work of maintaining human life. Olsen's work has been published in 13 languages. Olsen's search for neglected women writers became the foundation of women's studies in colleges and universities across the country. Her work broadened the definition of literature, led to the reprinting of books by forgotten authors, and inspired renowned writers including Alice Walker, Ursula Le Guin, Maxine Hong Kingston, and the former late Mills Professor of Creative Writing Sheila Ballantyne. This film screening is co-sponsored by the English Department, Jewish Studies Program, and Film Studies at Mills College. More information about the film is available at website www.thetillieolsenfilmproject.com. Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering a dynamic progressive education that fosters leadership, social responsibility, and creativity to approximately 900 undergraduate women and 500 graduate women and men. Since 2000, applications to Mills College have more than doubled. The college ranks as one of the top colleges in the West by U.S. News & World Report and one of the Best 366 Colleges by the Princeton Review.
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