A Violent Woman is the story of Dutchess and Lena Carson, an estranged mother and her daughter. Dutchess lives in Bonaparte, Alabama, a once thriving black town now in its death throes. Lena lives in Philadelphia in the 1980s, a city then dogged by fiscal woes and violence. Lena and her son, Toussaint, live pillar to post as Lena grows increasingly unstable. Her involvement with the radical separatist group STEP leads to transcendence and tragedy. In this talk, writer Ayana Mathis discusses the disruptive qualities of these female characters who wander the margins of conventional life and experience the world with both joy and devastation.