Last night, for the first time in the history of the Academy Awards, the Oscar for Best Director was handed to a woman. Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow for her outstanding work on The Hurt Locker.

In strangely-related news…
Jeremy Renner (nominated for Best Actor for his leading role in The Hurt Locker) has a bit of a sideways connection to the life of a woman I’ve chosen to honour for International Women’s Day.

Before he was nominated for an Academy Award, Renner starred in the woefully short-lived series, The Unusuals. Shot on location in New York City, Renner played Detective Jason Walsh, a New York cop who slept in the back of a diner on the Lower East Side.

The exterior shots of the diner on the show were taken at the Stage Restaurant, a real life LES eatery.

The Stage is located at 128 Second Avenue. The address was once the site of the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Founded in 1868 by sister doctors Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell, the college was one of the first in New York to train female physicians. It was there, my great-great grandmother became a doctor.

And it was her work at the infirmary that inspired me to write my next novel, the Virgin Cure. I’ll be sharing more about Dr. Sadie and the novel in the weeks to come, but for now, I’ll wish you a Happy International Women’s Day and hope that you’ll take a minute to remember all the women who came before you and who made your life possible.