From the confines of convents to scrolling online in the digital age, women have always used writing and literature as tools for self-expression— defying society’s expectations that they be silent, demonstrating their intelligence, and unapologetically expressing their raw emotions.

Heloise, a bright medieval scholar, wrote a series of deeply intimate letters to her lover and teacher, Peter Abelard, that demonstrated her intelligence and the depth of her emotions. Centuries later, Simone de Beauvoir’s letters to her lover Nelson Algren continued this tradition of emotional expression through letter-writing. Despite being separated by centuries, both women wrote unapologetically about the burdens of love.