Alice walker's approach to writing is in many ways dissimilar to the many types of authors in the world of literature back when she began, and even today. There are authors of horror, romance, suspense, and then there is the type that Alice Walker writes, through personal experiences. Although most critics categorize her writings as feminist, Walker describes herself as a "womanist", she defines this as "a woman who loves other woman...appreciates and prefers woman culture, woman's emotional flexibility... and woman's strength... loves the spirit... loves herself, regardless". Walker is able to show her values and positions on issues thoroughly in her writing of poetry and novels. Alice Walker writes through her feelings and the morals that she has been brought up with. In writing about the African American woman's struggle for spiritual wholeness as well as sexual, political, and racial equality she shows these characteristics about herself.
             A lot of Walker's fiction is influenced by her Southern background. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia, a rural town where most blacks worked as tenant farmers. At the impressionable age of eight she was blinded in her right eye when an older brother accidentally shot her with a BB gun, after the incident she fell into a bit of a depression. Then, walker isolated herself from the other children, as she explained, "I no longer felt like the little girl I was. I felt old, and because I felt I was unpleasant to look at, filled with shame. I retreated into solitude, and read stories and began to write poems." In 1961 Walker was awarded a scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta, where she became involved in the civil rights movement and participated in sit-ins at local business establishments. She then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and successfully graduated in 1965. She met her future husband Melvyn Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights attorney, ...