March, National Women’s History Month, is a grand time to think of the brave and bold women nationally, internationally, and in our own lives. I think of the women who now lead countries and who serve in national and state government positions in the U.S. In a celebrity culture, I think of the usually unknown female musicians, scientists, dancers, painters, women working at non-profits and all the educators investing in the next generation. I think of the unsung women who prepare meals at hospitals and schools, who care for children, the elderly, the dying. I also think of you and me working to make this a better world, each in our own way, and how we draw strength from the determination of a Frida Kahlo, an Eleanor Roosevelt and the poet Lucille Clifton who died recently. How they lift our spirits!

I wrote A LIBRARY FOR JUANA: THE WORLD OF SOR JUANA INÉS to bring attention to Mexico’s most famous woman poet, a prodigy I didn’t hear about until I was an adult. I wrote MARIA PAINTS THE HILL to bring attention to Maria Hesch, a self-taught Santa Fe artist inspired by Grandma Moses, and I wrote DOÑA FLOR: A TALL TALE ABOUT A GIANT WOMAN WITH A GREAT BIG HEART to create a tall tale about an immense yet gentle bilingual woman who spoke all animal languages, “even rattler.”