When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice is a memoir by American author and activist Terry Tempest Williams. Published in 2012 by Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the book explores the strange journals her mother left her before she died. The result is a work that explodes with rediscovery and growth.
The experience of writing this book becomes a truly revelatory experience to the author. She gets to connect with her mother on a profound level. While pondering what her mother meant with the strange journals, Williams creates a lyrical voice for the journals and attempts to convey what her mother was trying to express.
In an effort to regain some part of her mother, Williams goes on this journey of self discovery and great manifestation. Her mother is challenging her with questions of her own making. Williams therefore takes an extensive account of her life and every moment that has defined who she is today, in which she concludes that her mother withheld her voice and dreams so that her daughter can have them instead.
Terry Williams received the highest honor of being the first American to be awarded the Robert Marshall Award in 2006 and later received the International Peace Award in 2011, among many other accolades.
