Female artists celebrate International Women’s Day

A group of local creative women took the opportunity to share their stories and speak about their craft to honour International Women’s Day.

Authors and publishers came together March 5 at Biblioasis bookstore to support and encourage each other.  They held conversations about their crafts and celebrated the accomplishments of women.

Vanessa Shields, host of the panel discussion, said it was inspired by International Women’s Day.

“I just wanted to get a group of wonderful creative local women together to talk about their arts, if their identity and art is connected and how being a woman plays into that,” said Shields.

Janet Dixon-Snaden, one of the participants said the event was fantastic.

“We were able to hear different writers and have them share their experiences and not only that just how they day-to-day live as women,” said Dixon-Snaden. “It is empowering and full of a lot of love and support. I think the more that we do that as women to women, the better all of us are going to be.”

Some men also showed up to show support, including Grisenth Waite.

“I don’t want to take anything away from what women have to go through to make it in this world but if we start focusing on what we share and work from that instead of what suppress us. I think everybody will be in a better place,” said Waite

The panel discussion focused on women being addressed as ‘she’ and ‘her,’ sharing their experiences as creative women in the worldand how they can overcome hurdles and improve themselves.