![the company of women book the company of women book](https://journal.alabamachanin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ALABAMA-CHANIN-IN-THE-COMPANY-WOMEN-1.jpg)
Heather O'Donnell started bookselling while she studied English at Columbia, holding down a series of bookish jobs: working the cash register at the Strand, shelving photobooks in the Avery Library, sifting the slush pile at Grand Street. Please request access services by emailing by May 20th, 2019.Ībout Heather O'Donnell & Rebecca Romney: This event is free and open to the public. Heather and Rebecca will survey some of their favorite prize submissions, and reflect on what they are learning from a rising generation of women collectors. Their goal is to celebrate women building exceptional collections, and to encourage more women to identify confidently as collectors from a young age. In 2017, Heather and Rebecca established the Honey & Wax Prize to draw attention to the range of creative approaches to book collecting currently being practiced by young women in the United States, expanding the popular perception of book collecting from an elite pursuit to a more democratic practice. Historically, many booksellers have been slow to recognize and cultivate women collectors, especially when those women approach their chosen subjects from unconventional angles many women have been hesitant to identify as "book collectors" at all, even when they are building serious and original collections. The result of that imbalance has been a predictable series of missed connections. While there have always been a select number of women in the top ranks of American book collectors, the field remains largely dominated by men, both as buyers and sellers. In this talk, rare book dealers Heather O'Donnell and Rebecca Romney of Honey & Wax Booksellers share some of the experiences that inspired their annual prize of $1000 for an outstanding book collection built by a woman in the United States, aged 30 or younger. The Smithsonian Libraries invites you to the first in a series of talks related to our newest exhibition, Magnificent Obsessions: Why We Collect: