In these words, Tillie Olsen dedicated her book, Silences, to the women whose lives for centuries were constricted by sexual role and social custom, yet who struggled nevertheless to express themselves (pp. 42–43). She further urged women who write and women who teach to give voice to these silent women by moving beyond the novel and the published poem to the journals, letters, memoirs, and other personal utterances that “add to the authentic story of human life, human experience” (pp. 45n).