#I’ve always had this problem……. I love historical nonfiction …

[kralmajales]

So annoying that I cannot read the book I’m reading in public because of the cover……..

[asha-mage]

Tagged by: @gunkreads (thanky!)

1) Last book I read:

The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi. I really really love me some historical fiction that digs into the actual political complexities and realities of the feudal system. Defiantly one of the spicier books I've read recently, which made it fun to listen to when I was doing mundane activities like shopping. The audio book narrator is absolutely stellar though, and I would recommend to anyone who likes feudal politics.

2) A book I recommend:

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune has become my Swiss army recommendation: a light contemporary fantasy, full of warm vibes and a sweet story at it's heart. It's still got teeth for tackling social issues- beneath the sweetness it is primarily a criticism of our Foster/education systems and how they fail the most vulnerable. I seem to recall that one of the praise quotes floated on this one a lot is 'feels like being wrapped up in a big fluffy gay blanket' and concur.

3) A book that I couldn’t put down:

In Other Lands by Sarah Reese Brenan. A Narina pastiche about a annoying know it all who gets taken too a fantasy other world. It's incredibly funny and compelling and weird, and I couldn't stop reading it. Brenan is a master at making her characters both three dimensional and frustrating and so easy to love, and while I wish I knew more of the exact details of her world- she engages with the ideas and conflicts she sets up in a such multifaceted way that I don't really think I mind the lack of a map, or timeline, or political flowchart.

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more)

Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I've lost count of how many times I've read it exactly- more then thirty and at least once every few years since I first read it. This one is a core memory for me, or maybe a load baring pillar of my personality.

5) A book on my TBR

Oh man. A lot. Like. A lot a lot. But I really am hoping to get to Ocean's Echo by Evrina Maxwell this year. I adored Winter's Orbit so much, but Ocean's Echo has just been sitting on my nightstand, waiting.

6) A book I’ve put down

I really tried with Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat. I just couldn't get into and I don't know why. I may swing back to it when I find the time. It feels like I would like it a lot if I could get far enough in.

7) A book on my wish list

Lava Red Feather Blue by Molly Ringle. It seems very up my alley.

8) A favourite book from childhood

I've always had as soft spot for the Artemis Fowl books. I fell off them in a way I didn't with the likes of Percy Jackson and I wonder if I would feel the same way if I circled back around to them now- probably not but they'll always have a special place for being the books to introduce me to the heist genre and predispose me to liking things like Ocean's 8 and Leverage.

9) A book you would give a friend

As a gift? It would depend on the friend. A Psalm for the Wildbuilt by Becky Chambers probably- since it's short sweet and pretty impossible to hate imo. I have problems with Becky Chambers's brand of....warm cynicism? Their is an undercurrent to a lot of her works that boils down to 'humanity is screwed already short of some kind extra-human intervention', especially her Wayfareres series. I feel like Wildbuilt is one of her books that engages with that idea in a more thoughtful and interesting manner. It has some of the most thoughtful and interesting conversations about humanity and nature that I've run across in a long time, and it's short which is always a plus for a gift book.

10) The most books you own by a single author

Robert Jordan baby, at a cool 11 (or 14 depending on how you count the last three). I adore Jordan's Wheel of Time series more then I can put into adequate words. Core memory. Load bearing pillar. Canon event. Etc etc.

11) A nonfiction book you own

Not many. I'm not a big nonfiction reader to be honest. I think I have a copy of the Sawbones book, by Dr McElroy hanging around somewhere.

12) what are you currently reading

I'm currently revisiting the Percy Jackson series. I intend to probably take a tour through the whole thing- the original five, HOO, Magnus Chase, Trials of Apollo, etc etc. Partly it's a desire to watch the show but also a desire too reexamine my relationship to these works. I read them while I was in their target audience, and while not as foundation for me as WoT, I would say their still pretty important.

13) what are you planning on reading next?

I think I want to try and give Heaven's Official Blessing another go. It's the only MXTX work I've bounced off of, which is weird since I'm pretty sure consensus is that it's her best work. I've been meaning to get back to it for a while. If still bounce off it, I'll try something off TBR- either Ocean's Echo or Lava Red Feather Blue.

Tagging: @highladyluck @veliseraptor @ace-and-ranty

[oficmag]

Contributor Spotlight: Kitsey (Kits)

Now that Issue #1 is live, we at OFIC Mag are excited to shine a light on some of the amazing contributors from our inaugural issue. We hope you all love them as much as we do!

Today’s spotlight is on Kitsey (Kits) | @smallwifery (18+ only), who wrote “to drown me out” for Issue #1.

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I'm a historian, a knitter, and a certified Sad Girl™️; I like Phoebe Bridgers, Taylor Swift, and really big hoop skirts. I'm also a Scorpio, as will become immediately apparent when you read any of my work.

How did you find fandom?

I've always had an obsessive and addictive personality: when I was in elementary school I cycled consistently between Star Wars, Twilight, and that one series of wizard books written by an anonymous author with no public political opinions. I dressed up as Princess Leia on a regular basis and made my best friends run around at recess casting spells with twigs. You know, the usual. But I really discovered fandom, in its online incarnations, with BBC Sherlock in 2012 or so. It's all been downhill (or up?) from there.

What fandom are you in now and what brought you here?

The Terror, AMC's 2018 limited series about the lost Franklin Expedition. I first watched the show in 2019 because it was my partner's current fandom; we rewatched it in the summer of 2021 and I fell completely in love. I'm now more obsessed with it than she is. (Sorry, babe.) I just think that if all those guys are gonna be stuck on boats in the Arctic together, they should at least kiss about it, you know?

What’s your favorite book of all time and what do you love about it?

This is technically cheating, but I do own all three books bound in one copy, so: the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker. It's the most incisive, wrenching, and historically accurate account of the First World War I've ever encountered in fiction, and it also happens to be queer. Barker's writing has had a huge impact on my own; I aspire to her ratio of maximal devastation in minimal words.

What projects are you working on right now?

Oh, man. In theory, the proposal for my master's dissertation; in practice, a large and ever-growing number of quick-and-dirty Terror one-shots, with working titles like "jfj loses a bet (erotic)" and "champagne problems redux." I have a couple of longer fics waiting in the wings but they've really not been happening for me lately. I am still trying to convince myself that this is fine.

What are your aspirations as a writer, big picture or small?

I want to write novels. I've dabbled in creative nonfiction and playwriting and I'd be happy to do more of both, but what I want most is to be a novelist. 

If you could give one piece of advice to beginning writers, what would you tell them?

Be kinder to yourself. My biggest problem is "should"-ing the hell out of myself: I should be writing. This should be perfect even though it's a first draft. Try to let go of some of that! Do you need to be writing right now? If no, do you want to be? If the answer to both those questions is no, you may, as I often do, end up paralysed and terrified and overwhelmed with guilt. Needless to say, this is not conducive to writing. Relax. Take your time, and take care of yourself. It'll be there when you're ready.

THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF THE OFIC FAMILY, KITSEY! WE’RE SO THRILLED TO SHARE YOUR WORK WITH THE WORLD.

[olderthannetfic]

hi hi history-non again, sorry I know it's a very

ahem wide and girthy ahem

ask, and i'm sorry for not narrowing it down farther my brain is smooth as butter and the dart board, so to speak, is. big. i feel like im throwing my dart in the ocean of 'what i don't know' and trying to spear a fish who might speak to me like the queer elder i never ha d ;lkasjd;flkas damn you small conservative town ANYWAYS

i guess okay maybe do you have any favourite figureheads? whats your fave pieces of lgbtqa+ media (like books or shows?)

thanks again and sorry for.

uh.

big.

--

Lolololol. Yes.... it’s so... big...

In the 90s, the writers of nonfiction who I found really inspirational were Susie Bright and Kate Bornstein. My Gender Workbook was a classic. I gather there’s a new edition.

I was a massive, massive nerd, so my actual favorite queer book as a 14-year-old is one that will be a bit... uh... much if you’re not feeling very intellectual. It’s Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. This thing is a massive doorstop of a book that collects academic journal articles on third gender roles from various cultures. I was obsessed with this thing. Again, it’s academic journal articles, not popular nonfiction, so expect that level of impenetrable prose.

I was also a giant weeb, so I read a bunch of books on the history of gay sex in Japan. It’s pretty interesting how much people assume the “m/m sex = sin” shit was worldwide and how much it just was not.

In terms of fiction, I’ve always struggled to find f/f media I relate to. I really like the tv adaptations of Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet. Lots of fucked up problematicness and gorgeous visuals. Gotta love the lady with the strap-on and the gold body paint!

For other queer media, I was a big fan of Velvet Goldmine and of Pedro Almodóvar’s older films, which are full of every problematic kink you can think of. They also have a lot of het I like, like the lady being coerced into sex (that she enjoys) by the drag queen who impersonates her famous mother she has a lot of mommy issues about... except said drag queen is really an undercover police officer. Just... whut. (All the “straight” stuff in Almodóvar’s films is also bugfuck nuts and often kind of queer.)

I really, really, really loved Crash. Not the shitty one that won an oscar: the car crash perverts one full of weird UST. There’s a ton of straight sex in this too, along with every gender combo and a laundry list of upsetting kinks. It’s just every kind of weird perv thing. (”Weird art film full of sex and problematicness” is pretty much the defining feature of movies I liked as a teen. I loved Kissed, that het necrophilia movie too.)

Stage Beauty is probably my favorite film for bi vibes. It’s this meditation on identity as the English stage was changing over from having men play women to having actual actresses. It ends in f/m, but it’s definitely a very queer film.

If you want slice of life stuff, I guess you could try Dykes to Watch Out For (the comic that’s the source of the bechdel test) or the Tales of the City novel series. These will both give you a sense of what was going on in certain queer communities in the late 20thC. If you want something relatively fluffy, Maurice is a historical costume drama with a happy ending. I found it awfully slow as a college student, but it does have naked Rupert Graves (Lestrade from Sherlock), so...

----

See, this is hard to answer because I came of age and did all of my reading of that kind a long time ago. I pretty quickly moved on to fangirl media, which I have always liked a lot better than other arguably queer stuff. Back in the 90s, that meant Japanese stuff and fic. Later, I had access to more flavors of by-fujoshi-for-fujoshi media.

So my actual favorite m/m books are a bunch of “m/m romance” (i.e. American BL being sold as ebooks on amazon). If you want live action TV and fandomy vibes, you’re better off with Trapped (hot cop/mobster action!) or one of those Thai series about schoolboys or something than stuff made by cis gay men in the US.

I also came of age in an era when “queer” media was very Cis Gay Men And Sometimes Cis Lesbians with an occasional nod to bi people existing... maybe. Kate Bornstein and a few others were raising the profile of MtF transsexuals (the term in use at the time) who wanted surgery or even, gasp, maybe didn’t want bottom surgery in some cases. Anything about FtMs or nb/agender/etc. identities was practically invisible. I saw the term ‘genderqueer’ around a bit, but it was mostly in contexts that were very tryhard and unappealing to me.

(You haven’t given any details, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re like much of tumblr and the flavors of queerness you relate to aren’t so much the Cis Gay Men Only culture that makes up quite a bit of queer history and older queer media.)

I can tell you what I liked as a teen, but not everybody is into fucked up art films that may not have happy endings. I can try to rec things about queer culture in the 90s, but I probably don’t have great recs for way earlier or later than that... unless it’s so much earlier that I’ve researched it while writing fic of some historical canon or other. A lot of how I learned about queer culture myself was from magazines or from reading soc.bi on usenet or just from living through the 90s--not typically from books that are easy to unearth and just hand to someone now.

I tend to just not like anything in the contemporary romance or slice of life genres, regardless of gender and orientation, so while I’ve watched/read a bit more queer stuff like this, especially in the past when I had less access to queer media, it’s not a space I’m great at reccing in. And that’s unfortunate because a lot of that type of art gives you a better sense of what other queer people were like in other eras and/or it’s a safer rec than some bananas crazy BDSM film.

I was, and am, very kinky (though pretty lazy in terms of actual practice), so a lot of my reading and media interest was bound up in that also. Obviously, I was quite interested in the drawings of Tom of Finland or the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, but are you going to be into photos of some guy shoving a whip handle in his ass? I love the movie Cruising... it’s about serial killers and leather and homophobia and is every bit as potentially traumatizing as that sounds.

I feel you on the problem of finding queer elders. There isn’t really an obvious way to go about this.

[randomnumbers751650]

Long, unedited text in which I rant about comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell and his monomyth,

Back in 2012 I wanted to improve my fiction writing (and writing in general, because in spite of nuances, themes and audience, writing a fiction and a nonfiction piece shouldn’t be that different) and thus I picked a few writing manuals. Many of them cited the Hero’s Journey, and how important it became for writers – after all Star Wars used and it worked. I believe most of the people reading this like Star Wars, or at least has neutral feelings about it, but one thing that cannot be denied is that became a juggernaut of popular culture.

So I bought a copy of the Portuguese translation of The Hero of a Thousand Faces and I fell in love with the style. Campbell had a great way with words and the translation was top notch. For those unaware, The Hero of a Thousand Faces proposes that there is a universal pattern in humanity’s mythologies that involves a person (usually a man) that went out into a journey far away from his home, faced many obstacles, both external and internal, and returned triumphant with a prize, the Grail or the Elixir of Life, back to his home. Campbell’s strength is that he managed to systematize so many different sources into a single cohesive narrative.

At the time I was impressed and decided to study more and write in an interdisciplinary research with economics – by writing an article on how the entrepreneur replaces the mythical hero in today’s capitalism. I had to stop the project in order to focus on more urgent matters (my thesis), but now that I finished I can finally return to this pet project of mine.

If you might have seen previous posts, I ended up having a dismal view of economics. It’s a morally and spiritually failed “science” (I have in my drafts a post on arts and I’m going to rant another day about it). Reading all these books on comparative mythology is so fun because it allows me for a moment to forget I have a degree in economics.

Until I started to realize there was something wrong.

My research had indicated that Campbell and others (such as Mircea Eliade and Carl Gust Jung, who had been on of Campbell’s main influences) weren’t very well respected in academia. At first I thought “fine”, because I’m used to interact with economists who can be considered “heterodox” and I have academic literature that I could use to make my point, besides the fact my colleagues were interested in what I was doing.

The problem is that this massive narrative of the Hero’s Journey/monomyth is an attempt to generalize pretty wide categories, like mythology, into one single model of explanation, it worked because it became a prescription, giving the writer a tool to create a story in a factory-like pace. It has checkboxes that can be filled, professional writers have made it widely available.

But I started to realize his entire understanding of mythology is problematic. First the basics: Campbell ignores when myths don’t fit his scheme. This is fruit of his Jungian influences, who claim that humanity has a collective unconsciousness, that manifest through masks and archetypes. This is the essence of the Persona games (and to a smaller extent of the Fate games) – “I am the Shadow the true self”. So any deviation from the monomyth can be justified by being a faulty translation of the collective unconsciousness.

This is the kind of thing that Karl Popper warned about, when he proposed the “falseability” hypothesis, to demarcate scientific knowledge. The collective unconsciousness isn’t a scientific proposition because it can be falsified. It cannot be observed and it cannot be refuted, because someone who subscribe to this doctrine will always have an explanation to explain why it wasn’t observed. In spite of falseability isn’t favored by philosophers of science anymore, it remains an important piece of the history of philosophy and he aimed his attack on psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung – and, while they helped psychology in the beginning, they’re like what Pythagoras is to math. They were both surpassed by modern science and they are studied more as pieces of history than serious theorists.

But this isn’t the worst. All the three main authors on myths were quite conservatives in the sense of almost being fascists – sometimes dropping the ‘almost’. Some members of the alt-right even look up to them as some sort of “academic’ justification. Not to mention anti-Semitic. Jung had disagreement with Freud and Freud noticed his anti-Semitism. Eliade was a proud supporter of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist organization that organized pogroms and wanted to topple the Romanian government. Later Eliade became an ambassador at Salazar’s Fascist Portugal, writing it was a government guided by the love of God. Campbell, with his hero worship, was dangerously close to the ur-fascism described by Umberto Eco (please read here, you won’t regret https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf).

“If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.”

Campbell did that a lot. He considered the Bible gospels and Gnostic gospels to be on the same level. Any serious student, that is not operating under New Age beliefs and other frivolous theories like the one that says Jesus went to India, will know there’s a difference between them (even Eliade was sure to stress the difference).

But Campbell cared nothing for it. He disliked the “semitic” religions for corrupting the mythic imagination (which is the source of his anti-Semitism), especially Judaism. When I showed him describing the Japanese tea ceremony to a friend who’s minoring in Japanese studies, she wrote “I’m impressed, he’s somehow managed to out-purple prose the original Japanese”. So, it’s also full of orientalism, treating the East as the mystical Other, something for “daring” Westerners to discover and distillate.

What disturbed…no, “disturbed” isn’t the word that I need in the moment, but what made me feel uncomfortable is that, in spite of all his talk of spirituality, the impression I had of Power of Myth is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more materialist than him. Not even Karl Marx, founder of the Historical Materialism, was as materialist as Campbell.

At one point in the book, he was asked if he believed in anything and he gave a dismissive reply and said “I want to get experiences.” A man who studied all the myths of the world available, apparently didn’t believe in anything. Is that what spiritual maturity is? A continuous flux of experiences? Being taken by some sort of shamanistic wind like a floating plastic bag?

In nowhere in the interview he talked about virtues. In rebellion with his Catholic childhood, he said that we should go to the confessionary and say “God, I’ve been such a good boy”. Any cursory reading of the Gospel would say otherwise. Wasn’t this exactly Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18:9-14? While the wasn’t the publican, who went with humility and asked for forgiveness, the one who walked out with an experience? And not only in Christianity, since in Tibetan Buddhism, a tulpa is something you have to kill, not foster like an imaginary friend like in some internet circles, contamined with this obsession with experiences.

The way I came to see Joseph Campbell as a man who was so stuck in his own world that nothing could move him out of it. All he wanted to do was this big experience, but in the end it’s as wide as the ocean, but shallow as a puddle. Even when Campbell speaks about having a “cosmic consciousness”, all that New Age jargon, claiming it’s about people discovering they’re not the center of the universe, it’s still so…self-servicing. It addresses a crowd so obsessed with experiences, but wants nothing to do with anything that requires compromise. He quotes the Hindu concept of maya, that life is an illusion, but I wonder how right he is about it.

I want to share this critique, by a researcher in comic studies: “We do not remember The Night Gwen Stacy Died because Gwen’s death reminds us of our own mortality, ‘the destiny of Everyman’, but because the story exposes the fragility of Spider-Man reader’s fantasies. Even icons can die.”

The exposition of the fragility of myths, especially the Hero’s Journey, never happens in Campbell’s work. It never talks about the potential of myths hindering entire societies, causing strife and causing people who can’t fit to become outcasts. Not even the cruel ones, like the Aztec death cult is treated as sublime, ignoring the fact that the Aztec neighbors helped to Spanish because they had enough of the Aztec myth.

I have changed my article. While I will still write on the hero entrepreneur, I’ll take a more critical view. The focus of the entrepreneur as an individual has many issues, because it ignores the role of public investment (necessary for high risk enterprises, like going to the moon or creating touch screens) and it treats with contempt the worked wage. Cambpell also treated with contempt the “masses”, who cannot be “heroes”. The theory on the entrepreneur is the same, treating the entrepreneur as a hero and the waged workers as lowlifes who have nothing to do, but to work, obey and be paid – to the point it feels like some economists treat strikes as crimes worse than murder. Not only that, but they can exploit the worker (see a book named “Do what you love and other lies about success and happiness”, it could be replaced with “Follow your bliss…”).

Campbell wrote in a time that there was no Wikipedia. So his book was the introduction of myths to a lot of people. It helped it was well-written. He considering his approach apolitical, but it’s clear that’s it’s not exactly like that (though this is a reason why Jordan Peterson failed to become the next Campbell, since he’s also a Jungian scholar, but he tried to become a conservative guru and this was his downfall). And, nowadays, Campbell is still inevitable in the circles that his themes matter, unlike Freud and Jung. Read it, but be aware of its problems, because it has already influenced what you consume.

[atomicsuperhero]

Books That Influenced My Perspective

I didn’t write a gift guide because I feel like it's such a personal thing, and also that most of us don’t really need more stuff. But books are something that has been a mainstay in my life, and especially around the holidays. They’re an escape for me from the tension and stress that I associate with the Christmas season. 

So I thought I’d write about a few of the books I’ll probably be dipping into over the next few days between Christmas and the new year. I have read all of these in ebook format, so they’re not more physical clutter. Though, I’m all for gifting books, or buying them for yourself, in whatever form is preferred. 

I also listened to the Scotland Outdoors podcast this past weekend that talked about the Icelandic tradition of gifting books that everyone then runs off to read on Christmas Eve. It’s called Jólabókaflóð, or Yule Book Flood. It’s past Christmas Eve now, but it's still a great time to read.

Books change our minds and our perspectives, and these are four books that have had a significant impact on my life and how I view the world, nature, gardening, and mental health.

Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World by Emma Marris

This book was a real eye-opener for me. It delves into the paradox of wilderness and how there isn’t really such a thing anymore because we manage it so heavily. We strive for this pristine wilderness, which in reality, is based on a static historical idea we have of what wilderness should be. 

That “pristine” we aim for is always an idea of what nature looked like at a specific point in time, usually shortly after settlers and colonialists arrived. Generally, this view makes no account for the indigenous people who were part of this so-called wilderness long before we were. So the idea we often hold as “pristine wilderness” is also racist and erases the perspectives and existence of the indigenous peoples who already understood and managed the land.* 

That idea of pristine is entirely impossible to return to, for various reasons, not least of which is the fact that nature is in constant flux. Regardless of what we do, nature keeps changing. Even if all humans disappeared from the earth, it would keep changing; we can’t stop it.

We need to work with nature instead of attempting to return it to the landscape that Ansel Adams explored and photographed. Change is constant, and we must work with the change and do our best to counteract the adverse effects we’ve had on the world as humans. We must learn to coexist with nature. We could take many lessons from the people who were here before us settlers. 

This book is not a depressing, doomsday climate change discussion. It is full of interesting theories and ideas of how we could better take care of nature, as a global collective of humans, not just as individuals. 

*I don’t recall the book discussing indigenous perspectives. It might, or it might not. It's been over four years since I read it. If it doesn’t include indigenous perspectives, then I would probably detract a few points from it and advise you to read it with that in mind. 

The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot by Robert Macfarlane

This book connected with my heart and my head in ways that no other book ever has. I have read and reread and reread and copied entire chapters of this book by hand because it has affected me so much. 

This book showed me that writing about nature could be compelling and imaginative, and all-consuming as fiction. Previous to this book, I had separated non-fiction and fiction as “learn factual things” and “escape the world to a fantasy universe.” This book crossed that line and let me escape into a fantasy that was the real world, on another side of the globe. 

Don’t ask me why this is the first time I made this realization. I’ve read a ton of travel memoirs, which in hindsight, do precisely that: let me escape my life for a moment. But this one was the first one that made me really understand that it was possible to do this with nonfiction. 

I have since read several of Macfarlane’s other books, and they have all been beautiful and take me out of my current life and away into an obsession with nature. Most importantly, this book made me realize that the possibility of writing about nature was a real career that people did. And maybe that meant it was something I could do too. I can only hope to someday write as compellingly as Macfarlane.

Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain by Roger Deakin

I learned about Roger Deakin through Robert Macfarlane’s books. All of Deakin’s books have made an impact on my passion for nature and the environment. But Waterlog has had a particularly profound effect on me. This book is probably the precursor to my adoption of nearly-daily cold showers as an anxiety treatment. This is another book that I’ve read and reread and copied passages out of by hand because I love it so much. 

This book, and The Old Ways, are my default escape books when I’m having a shitty day. Similar to Macfarlane, Deakin’s words make me feel like I’m there, in the exact moment he writes about. Like I’m stepping into the water, warm or cold, clear or murky, for a swim right with him. It makes me feel close to nature. It makes me feel comfortable and that it’s ok to want to retreat and be in solitude with the world by myself. It reminds me that I’m a piece of nature too. 

At the end of the day, nature doesn’t give two shits about my deadlines or financial worries; it just keeps keeping on. And so maybe the problems that are overwhelming my brain are rather insignificant in the grand scheme of life. Not in a: “I don’t matter, so what’s the point” way, but in a: “there’s more to life than this crap that I’m currently stressing about” way. It helps me remember that I am a human first and foremost and that capitalism is bullshit.  

The Jewel Garden: A Story of Despair and Redemption by Monty Don

I found this book after watching many seasons of Gardeners World with Monty Don. I’m obsessed with this show, and when the season ends in October, I watch old episodes to get me through the winter until it starts again in March. 

The natural progression of my obsession with wanting to be the Canadian version of Monty meant reading everything he’s written that I can get my hands on. This has been one of my consistent favourites. It was hard to read, in that it was an emotional experience for me. And it has been every time I’ve reread it since. 

But it has also given me hope. It has reminded me that gardening and plant care is consolation for my mind during the hard days of mental illness. It has given me hope that writing will get me through and that I can survive through the hardest days.  That however dim it may be, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That no matter how dark it gets, the days always get brighter after December 21. 

And no matter what human drama happens in the world, plants are always growing. The best thing I can do for my own mental health is to be a good steward of the earth, tell my stories, take care of plants, and learn the lessons they teach me. 

How Books Have Improved my Mental Health Management

There’s a theme here. These books have affected the way I look at the natural world, where I fit into it, and how I write and interact with it, and as a result, have had an effect on my mental health. All of these books have given me new ways to think about my mental health and manage it. 

I would highly recommend reading any of these titles during the holiday season. 

I have not included links to purchase these books because I know that independent bookstores are really struggling right now, and I know that lots of people are also struggling right now. So if you do choose to purchase physical copies of these, try to find an independent book store. They’ll probably order it in for you if they don’t have it in stock. 

If you can’t purchase them, check with your library. Chance are good they’re in the library system somewhere, and your library will most likely be able to bring them in for you; just ask.

[shitty-check-please-aus]

2020 Books Read So Far

Note: Most of these are audiobooks (listening to books counts as reading books and if you disagree I’d ask you to consider why you believe that), books I started and didn’t finish will be listed but not reviewed, and all my opinions are extremely subjective. I’m putting this on this blog because I want to and I think it’ll help me keep track of what I’ve read if I write it down in a couple places. 

Some notes:

I’m surprised that most of these are nonfiction! I don’t usually think of myself as a nonfiction reader. 

Having audiobooks has made me way more productive as a reader, since I can read while I’m doing repetitive tasks at work, when I have to stand on the bus, when I’m running, etc. 

Naked, by David Sedaris

3/5, the audiobook was “unabridged selections” which means “we didn’t edit the individual essays but you’re only getting half the book”– it would probably have been a 4/5 if it was a whole book. I liked that Amy Sedaris was reading parts of it, but that’s because I like her more than I like her brother. This is sort of an example of the difference between “comedic” and “humorous,” because it’s definitely the latter. 

Read it if: you want to read something pretty fucking weird. 

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, by Sarah Vowell

4/5, I saw this recommended a lot when Hamilton first came out so it’s been in the back of my mind for a good while. The book had a great cast, and having different people reading the historical quotes was an excellent touch! 

However, I think Vowell’s conversational style is a little jarring here sometimes. It’s like “wait, why are you talking about Bruce Springsteen, I’m not that familiar with his work but he definitely isn’t from Revolutionary War times.” I got her book Assassination Vacation at a used bookshop recently as well, and both books suffer from post-2016 hindsight, where she’ll say something about how incompetent and foolish the politicians of her time are, and I just have to snort to myself and say “Sarah, you’re going to lose your goddamn mind soon.” That’s a bit of an unfair reaction, but it’s hard to avoid having it.

I was also, maybe unfairly, expecting to learn more than I did. The problem is that I know a Lot about the Revolutionary War, and from the introduction I thought we’d hear more about Lafayette’s later life (my knowledge drops sharply after about 1810). The book basically ends after the Battle of Yorktown, though.

Read it if: you have not seen/listened to both Hamilton and 1776, or if you want to read a summary of the Revolutionary War with a focus on one French captain. 

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell

3/5, honestly maybe a 2.5/5. Okay, so. Either I know a lot more about American History than I felt like I did or this is again a very surface level thing. Part of it is because she spends 123 pages on Abe Lincoln. There are 255 pages total. 2/3 of the states I’ve lived in are Indiana and Illinois, two states that fight about claiming Lincoln as their own, and I’ve been to D.C. 4 or 5 times, so I feel like I know enough about Lincoln. I know about John Wilkes Booth, and his brother Edwin who saved Lincoln’s son’s life, and the death train that took Lincoln’s body around the country. I did enjoy learning about the doctor who was probably conspiring with Booth and how he ended up saving tons of lives in prison when there was a yellow fever outbreak (also to be briefly unbearably nitpicky: I think she might have mixed up dengue and yellow fever? She calls yellow fever “breakbone” but I can only find instances online of people calling dengue fever that. Maybe they called them all breakbone in the late 1800s. If anyone reading this is an epidemiologist, let me know).

It was interesting to hear that Charles Guiteau, killer of President Garfield, was part of the Oneida cult. I’m trying to think of anything notable she said about Leon Czolgosz, killer of President McKinley. I guess she talks about how people assumed he was a foreigner because of his name, but I already listened to “The Ballad of Czolgosz” in Assassins, so I knew “Czolgosz, angry man, born in the middle of Michigan.”

This one is from 2005 so the politics stuff is a little more interesting, since at the time I was busy learning multiplication and spending one entire baseball season learning about baseball and following my team (they won the world series, I have excellent timing). I will say that in 2005 we did have Google, so I am again annoyed with some of her asides and personal anecdotes. Look, if you go to the Hemingway house and you don’t know there will be cats there, that’s on you if you don’t bring your Claritin. Hemingway is associated with only two good things, six-toed cats and Daiquiris. 

She also does not acknowledge that the parties basically switched platforms? Lincoln’s Republican party is not today’s Republican party, in fact kind of the opposite, so it’s weird that she starts the book with a dedication that’s like “to my lifelong Democrat grandpa, he’d be pissed I dedicated a book about 3 Republicans to him.” I guess she does sometimes say stuff like “how did Lincoln’s party become Reagan’s” (paraphrase), but she doesn’t actually get into it. 

Speaking of Democrats, she literally spends more time talking about Pablo Picasso than she spends talking about JFK. She doesn’t explain why she didn’t talk about JFK, but it seems bizarre to me to write a book about American assassinations and to leave out John Fucking Kennedy. Literally I’ve talked more about JFK in this section than she did in her assassin book. It’s not until page 253 that JFK gets a full paragraph. There are 255 pages total. Truly, if she’d taken a paragraph to be like “I’m focusing on the presidents who were elected before 1900″ or “the presidents whose immediate families aren’t still alive” or even “I didn’t want to travel to Dallas for research” or SOMETHING to explain why she left out JFK, I would have understood it more instead of flipping through the pages wondering what was going on. 

Read it if: You do not listen to too many history podcasts and you didn’t read the Wikipedia page for the musical Assassins. And I guess if you don’t want to acknowledge that JFK did also get assassinated and that was kind of a big deal. Actually just listen to Assassins instead. 

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

5/5 as a mystery, 0/5 for its original title (not gonna say it here but if you’ve ever googled the name of HP Lovecraft’s cat, it’s along those lines). Less than 6 hours, narrated by Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey, fairly ideal as an audiobook. I am 95% sure I’ve already read this, because I spent the summer before I started high school reading every Agatha Christie book in the library (I do not have a list of all the Agatha Christie books in my library the summer of 2010, so there is some question). 

Read if: you want to hear the guy from Downton Abbey deliver the line “I’m not a complete fool!” in a tone that makes it sound like “I’m not a fucking moron!” Sidenote: Can anyone tell me if Brits say “solder” by pronouncing the L that I’ve always heard as a silent L? Or if Dan Stevens just fucked up that one word?

Over The Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love, by Jonathan Van Ness

4.5/5

This was a super enjoyable audiobook! It’s a testament to JVN’s considerable charisma that this book is full of him giving people in his past who would rather be anonymous Russian names, and it doesn’t get grating (as a Marina, however, I was shocked to not hear my name at any point; most of the other Marina’s I’ve met in my life are Russian). JVN has had a wild ride in life, and it’s a really raw, honest story of how he became who he is. I will say that if you are interested in reading this, please look up the trigger warnings; there are a lot of things that could be triggering to people. 

I feel a little bad at how much more I liked this one compared to Tan France’s memoir, but I also feel like whoever was ghostwriting that one did a bad job at making Tan seem... not extremely defensive, cocky, and prickly (it seems that JVN did not use a ghostwriter; Tan’s on the other hand, let the phrase “I’m proud to be a petty bitch” make it into the final proof several times). Also JVN advocates going to therapy in his book, while Tan kind of says that you should only go to therapy if you have no friends or family or life partner to talk to, which I fundamentally disagree with. I don’t know. I also feel like, if I were to get a makeover from the Fab 5, Jonathan would love my hair (I have great hair) while Tan would say that I’m dressing too old for a 24 year old and then take me to fucking Lane Bryant or Torrid (I wear a size 16 US so IRL options are limited). 

Read if: You like Queer Eye or Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Medallion Status, by John Hodgman

4.5/5

I really like John Hodgman’s podcast, and I got to ask him a question at an event he did at the Field Museum and he was very nice, so I went into this inclined to enjoy it. 

And I did! I had a good time reading it. I read it the first week of January and now it’s the second week of February so I have already erased much of the book’s content from my mind, but he somehow made the perspective of being a formerly kinda famous person really interesting. I would also recommend Vacationland, particularly if anyone wants to write an au where Nursey, as a New Yorker, has a vacation home in Dex’s town in Maine. That’s right, I brought it back around to the topic of this blog. And that would be a fucking fantastic au. 

Read it if: you like memoirs! it’s a good one. 

Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

Gonna give this one a 3/5 for performance, because Dan Stevens (again, because I liked his narration in the other one) does a really annoying American accent for a few characters, and an extremely bad Italian accent for another. I’m starting this review only a few hours in, so if it turns out that the Italian man is not Italian, I’ll revoke my criticism. Still a 5/5 mystery, though. I did have to stop many times when they were talking about Istanbul to go over to Spotify and play “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants. 

Books abandoned in 2020 (so far) (no real spoilers, I didn’t get more than a few chapters into any of them):

The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren

I got to a point where the main character was telling a lie that would put her newly accepted job into jeopardy, and it stressed me out so much as a relatively new hire that I stopped listening for the day and started another one, and then the week had passed and then the library took it back. I think I’d enjoy it more if I was reading it physically and I could control how fast I got through awkward parts (I am practically allergic to secondhand embarrassment). The performance was good and I did get a hankering for cheese curds. 

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

I had like three audiobooks checked out at the same time, and even though this was again an abridged version, I just didn’t have time for all of them. My mom has a physical copy, I’ll borrow that at some point. 

The Witch Elm, Tana French

This is one I may revisit someday. The main character is kind of an asshole, which is the point of his character I think, but it made it hard to get into the story. It’s also a 22 hour audiobook, which is kind of insanely long. Additionally, the narrator has a very slow way of talking, but if I tried to speed up the rate of playback I had trouble understanding his accent (I think I just have trouble processing really fast speech in general as well, but I would’ve had an easier time understanding someone with the same accent as me). Anyways, someone put a hold on it at the library and then I didn’t check it out again. 

[tam--lin]

Below is my personal aspec (ace/aro/adjacent) link collection, because I keep losing things, dangit.

Links to more links / general resources:

Sounds Fake But Okay's resources page

Asexual Agenda hosts regular linkspams

Asexual Agenda has a great Ace Tropes series

AZE, a journal for and by ace, aro, and agender people

Coyote's blog: The Ace Theist (lots of thoughtful, interesting community-related writing)

not-completely-terrible explainers to send to people:

6 ways to be an aspec ally (stonewall, UK)

CNN explainer

history:

Historically ace: aspec history

highlight

2011 queer/exclusionist/allo kerfuffle history

more aspec history, through zines

phenomenal slate article tracking mentions of asexuality all the way back to 1907

video: quick ace (+aro) history timeline 

Relationship types

Relationship Anarchy (in AZE)

thethinkingasexual: intro to ace (+aro) relationship anarchy

On Queerplatonic relationships, from someone who's actually in one

shadesofgrayro’s intro to QPRs post

coyote on QP-adjacent concepts

nonsexual intimacies (lists intended for writing reference)

Brainpickings: a visual history of romantic friendships

NB: takes the common view that many romantic friendships were what we'd now consider romantic and sexual same-gender relationships.

I’ve actually had at least 3 friendships that you could classify as “romantic friendships” -- all were characterized not by romantic feelings, but through actions usually categorized as “romantic”

Compulsory sexuality + sex positivity + amatonormativity

Sex positivity, compulsory sexuality and intersecting identities

asexual agenda: sex isn’t always good

The Ethical Prude. Long, rather academic. 

WaPo article on amatonormativity

consent and aspec people

video: problems with the “enthusiastic consent” model.

aspec and fandom/fiction

Asexuality and Fandom: When No One “Wants” An Ace Character. (Also discusses racism in slash shipping.)

Navigating Fandom As an Asexual (Medium post)

Database of aspec characters

aspec and purity culture

asexuality, purity, fear (growing up ace in purity culture)

on not wanting to feel/be seen as sexy

cinder ace: on growing up Christian and ace

blog post: mistook my asexuality for purity

nonfiction books

Minimizing Marriage

Boston Marriages (historical)

Singled Out (about amatonormativity, in different words)

Surpassing the Love of Men (historical)

The Sex Myth (reportedly a queer and aspec-friendly book on sexual culture)

forthcoming: Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

GoodReads list: books for happy spinsters

[kbrown78]

Monthly Wrap Up: August

Not a lot to say with this month. Mostly I just wasn't in the mood for reading or writing (which is why this is late). I tried to do 2 readthons and didn't fully complete either of them. I only read 6 books and while overall they were good (only having one 2 star), they were almost all disappointing to a certain degree. I did still manage to have a good variety of books (including a non fiction), read my classic of the month, and continue with my yearly reading challenge. Also midway through the month I started impleneting a new star rating system on a scale of 10 stars that I would then translate into a scale out of 5 stars. For clarification numbers on the left is out of 10 stars and the numbers on the right is out of 5 stars: 1-2 stars=1 star, 3-4 stars=2 stars, 5-6 stars=3 stars, 6.5-7 stars= 4 stars, 8-9= 5 stars (if a book manages to get 10/10 it's obviously going to be 5 stars). Not a bad month, just wasn't what I hoped it would be.  

More Than This by Patrick Ness: In the past I've read two very different books by Ness. A Monster Calls and The Knife of Never Letting Go. Also had very different opinions about the books. I've stayed away from Ness' other books because they've gotten mixed reviews, at best. The one exception seemed to be More Than This, which everyone seems to like but also tip toed around what it's about. Now having read it, it makes sense why very little is given away about this book, but I really didn't like it. The only reason I kept reading it was in the hope that I would get answers by the end of the story, which I didn't. I will say that the first quarter of this book, when Seth is waking up and just experiencing the environment around him, was actually good. Lyrical and introspective, the pacing was just right and really pulled me into the story despite little action or dialogue. It was definitely my favorite part of the book. After the mysterious Driver shows up, however, the entire novel goes downhill. Instead of being a slow, tender story that would focus on people, and life, and mortality, it just degrades into this weird action packed dystopian. Characters were just bland, absolutely devoid of personality and minimal back story to establish how tragic they are. As for Seth himself, I liked that he was gay and in the big scheme of things it wasn't a big deal, but I don't get why their had to be such extreme hatred for him being gay when that was only a very small part of the story. What's most frustrating about this book is that nothing makes sense and it provides no answers. Even the ending makes no sense! I can't go into any details because of spoilers but this is definitely one of the worst post apocalyptic/ dystopian stories I have ever read, and there are a ton of generic ones out there. This novel was just a cheap Matrix rip off with sloppy execution. Based off my opinion of this book, and what I've heard of other works by Ness, I don't think I'll be reading any more material that produces. More Than This received 2 out 5 stars (3/10) and was my pick for the Treasure Hunting Readathon: Door.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: I was initially going to read this one next month, as my classic for September, but I picked it up for this month as part of a reading challenge (which I did not complete). I know it's classic that a lot of people read as a child, but I wasn't one of those people, and I was curious how I would feel about it as an adult. There were definitely some problematic aspects of this book that are honestly staples of Victorian literature, child abuse (neglect) and racism. That being said, I rather enjoyed this book. It's a simple story, a sour girl discovering a secret garden, with a lot of depth due to the themes of love, friendship, and growth, making it both easy to read but something that lingers with me. It's a pretty book, with both the writing and the setting, that works as a timeless classic. The Secret Garden received 4 out 5 stars (7/10).  

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: When I read this book in junior high, I liked it but I honestly didn't get the hype. Now rereading, I realize that I missed so much as kid and this is the type of book I would recommend everyone read. Taking place during WWII, this book follows a young girl named Liesel as she grows up in a small town in Germany with her foster family. This is a book that nails everything that a historical fiction should be. The war serves as a backdrop while the spotlight is put on the struggles of daily life and the effects of the war. Characters are all well written, to the point where they come off as life like. Each one stands out as an individual with their own story to tell: from the book thief, to accordion player, to the Jesse Owen's fan, to the Jewish fist fighter, even Death himself. Even the plot, which is simple war time slice of life, really pulls me in with it's humanity and stellar characters. It's honestly hard to restrain myself in this quick wrap up because this book evokes so many thoughts and emotions in me. The best thing about this book is that it shows the humanity, it shows the light even in dark times. There's very little fault to this book, if any, and is the kind of book the comes along every once in while that you know will withstand the test of time and evolve into a modern classic. Needless to say The Book Thief received 5 out 5 stars (9/10).  

The Social Sex: A History of Female Friendship by Marilyn Yalom and Theresa Donovan Brown: While the topic of this piece of nonfiction did appeal to me, since I'll read just about any history book that focuses on women, but I think because it was a topic I had such high hopes for, I was ultimately disappointed by it. There were only a few chapters that I thought were actually informative, which is actually the problem I have with most shorter history books. When it's a history book there's generally a lot of ground to cover, that can't be properly condensed into a book under 400 pages. The result is usually a text that glosses over the more intimate and intricate details, which is what I'm really looking for. I really wanted to get a sense of the real world history of friendships among women because it's something I feel like doesn't get the spotlight it deserves and even in fiction I'm always looking for good examples of friendship between female characters. The first few chapters focused on the philosophy of friendship, while emphasizing how male dominated it was at the expense of women. That theme remained to almost the halfway point, which I really didn't want because that lesson has been driven in my head and I don't want to see it everywhere I go. Those chapters really only focused on a few notable female friendships at various periods of history, and only in 3 countries (sort of 4) in the entire world. There were a few solid chapters in the middle, and the book did end better than it started, but the last few chapters kept repeating the same thing. I felt stiffed because most the book just wasn't informative or memorable. An interesting subject that just fell short in it's delivery (and possibly research). The Social Sex received 3 out 5 stars (6/10) and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “book by 2 female authors” (which was really hard to find).  

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: Every century, someone is chosen to be the bearer of the Godstone. Princess Elisa is the current bearer, and while she is prophecised to perform a great act of service, the path to that destiny is filled with danger. When she is married off to a king from a neighboring kingdom she must finally face what it means to be the bearer and begin her long journey with an uncertain ending. I am excited to talk about this one but I'm finding it hard to. When I first read it back in high school, it instantly became one of my favorite series and remained one of my favorite series all these years. Because of how much I loved it, I put this reread off for awhile because I was super nervous that it wouldn't live up to my previous experience. It didn't, but to be fair it would be almost impossible since my reading tastes have changed, I have a better understanding of what I think makes a good book, and I've been hyping up this book for years.  What made this first book so beloved to me (an intelligent female protagonist who experiences amazing growth and the role of religion) were still all there with the depth that I remember them having. There even some surprising elements: like I still thought the romance was well handled and I loved the world. Everything about it from the religion to the geography to the language and even the fact that all the characters have darker skin (seriously if you're looking for more diverse YA I would totally recommend this one), clearly has influence from a certain culture in our world but is still its own thing. There were however, a few things that did disappoint me, one of them being a big deal (at least for me personally). The pacing of the narrative itself was fine, especially since there was a lot of journeying in this book, but it almost felt like the narrative was moving too fast and I just wish there were at least a few moments where the plot settles and we get more intimate character moments. The major issue I had with this book the lack of girl power, something I thought this series had but upon reread I was confronted with the fact that it really doesn't. Again I would like to emphasize that Elisa is a fantastic character, not only because she proves her intelligence and puts it to good use but she's someone who grows past her insecurities and becomes a better individual for it, but she's the only female character that gets this treatment. Most of the other females, like her sister Alodia, her nurse Ximena, and her new handmaid Mara, get little screen time and are hardly relevant to the story, while the only female side character, Cosme, is a total bitch to Elisa for basically the entire novel. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted in terms of girl power, and I was really disappointed by that, but that's my only major complaint. This book has its strong points that elevate it beyond the typical YA fantasy but it isn't all that I thought it would be. The Girl of Fire and Thorns received 5 out 5 stars  (8/10) and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “reread of a past favorite.”

The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson: Immediately after I finished The Girl of Fire and Thorns I started reading this one, since I want to marathon read all the books in the Fire and Thorns series, like I did last time. Where the first book focuses on Elisa's personal growth (the whole series does but its most prominent in the first book), introducing the world, and the battle of good vs evil (Joyans vs Invierne), the second book focuses more on Elisa being a ruler while still having a looming destiny and the political machinations of the world, and starts to blur the line between good and evil. Based on that summary it sounds more like the kind of book that I would love, but I struggled more with this book than I did the previous. I think it's due to the fact that this book tried to tackle more mature subject matter, but kept the narrative pacing the same as its predecessor, and also didn't really remedy the issues I had in the previous book, which were only more prominent. I didn't like the political intrigue because almost everything about it was just kind of dumped in the book with no prior development, which it really needed in order to create a believable scenario. I discussed in The Girl of Fire and Thorns wrap up that I was pretty disappointed by the lack of girl power which only got worse in this book. Mara as a character frustrated me because she only existed to talk about boys with Elisa, but there's also a lack of females being major characters or even important figures in politics. Even Elisa being a ruler is undermined by all the males in her court (except Hector), which is something I've seen done with YA fantasies with female monarchs, and I really don't like it because it reduces the queen down to little more than a figure head. Carson clearly shows that she can write amazing characters that are also female, but I don't know why she reserves it to only 1. Speaking of Elisa though, she is the best thing about this whole series. Like I love everything about Elisa. I love that she retains her core characteristics (strong moral code, her faith and intelligence) but she continues to progress as a character, constantly evolving to reach her full potential. She's honestly what drives the narrative, her decisions as a queen, her destiny as the bearer of the Godstone, and her internal growth. As YA fantasy, especially one from the time period it was published, this is a good book, but it's frustrating seeing the obvious potential this book has to be a rather sophisticated fantasy series, but then just not having it reach that potential. The Crown of Embers received 4 out 5 stars (7/10).

Thank You Everyone

Keep Calm and Keep Reading

[nebris]

Hating Valerie Solanas (And Loving Violent Men)

by Chavisa Woods 

My fourth book, and first full-length work of nonfiction will be released by Seven Stories Press in June. 100 Times (A Memoir of Sexism) is a 240-page memoir, written as in-scene vignettes, telling the stories of one hundred experiences of sexist discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual violence I have personally experienced and witnessed, beginning at age five, through the present day.

I recently shared an excerpt of this book on social media, and immediately an old friend who I’d long ago lost touch with, a man from the Midwest, began arguing with me, and compared me to Valerie Solanas. I could tell from the tone of his comment, he expected me to recoil at the mention of that name — Valerie Solanas — the direst of insults; queer female hysterical violent “femi-nazi” insanity personified. This name was meant to summon shame in me, like invoking some Goetic demon to bate and restrain my crazed feminism.

He’s not the only one who sees her that way. When so many people think Valerie Solanas, they think, “bat-shit crazy, violent, murderous, ridiculous, woman.”

In a recent season of the popular television show, American Horror Story, for instance, Solanas was depicted by Lena Dunham as a demented serial killer who led a cult of murderous feminists to kill heterosexual couples — kids hooking up in cars, happy newlyweds and such — in a bloody, nationwide feminist murder spree. This, of course, is a completely fictional narrative, and for the purposes of this show, Solanas’s epitomal work, The Scum Manifesto, was interpreted as a literal, earnest text. Dunham portrayed Solanas as a frumpy, grumpy, clownish homicidal lesbian.

In the mainstream media and collective consciousness, Solonas has been written off as a worthless artist, and remembered only for her violent act against Andy Warhol.

All of this got me thinking about unconscious bias, and what it takes for us to denounce a female artist’s historical worth, versus what it does for a man.

William Burroughs shot and killed his wife while drunk and high, playing a game they called “William Tell,” wherein his wife placed an apple on her head, and he shot it off. He missed, killed her, and later wrote about it, implying it was possible he subconsciously wanted to kill her, because he was gay and resented having a wife. He served only two weeks in jail for this slaughter. Because the homicide occurred in Mexico, and through a combination of bribery and fleeing the country, he avoided serving any prison sentence.

Burroughs, of course, is still widely celebrated as a great author. I, in fact, had a poem published in a literary magazine a few years ago, the cover adorned with a photograph of him holding a rifle. This image was considered darkly humorous.

Almost every other author I’ve spoken with about the ethics of celebrating Burroughs and his art points me in the direction of compassion; he had a drug problem, he and his wife were “in it together.”

After the murder of his wife, he served as a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. His body of work still remains relevant, is widely taught in English and Writing curriculum in colleges, and is written about reverently in current scholarly articles and in major media outlets worldwide. He is generally thought of as good man. In his bio on Wikipedia, the slaughter of his wife doesn’t even come in until the sixth paragraph. (I am citing Wikipedia, because it represents the most current, popular, collective opinions of the general public, not as a scholarly reference.)

Valerie Solanas, on the other hand, shot Andy Warhol, not killing him, but severely injuring him. He died twenty years later from health complications possibly exacerbated by the injury, as well as a speed addiction.

Solanas and Warhol had a documented horrible working/personal relationship, rife with insult. She saw Warhol as constantly demeaning her privately and publicly, even after featuring her in one of his films.

Warhol agreed to look at a play she’d written, possibly to produce it. She gave him the only manuscript to read, and he (claimed he) lost it, though she believed he threw it away to spite her. This was the catalyst for the shooting.

Pablo Neruda raped a servant while he was visiting her country as a diplomat. He wrote about it quite matter-of-factly and unapologetically in his memoirs (I Confess that I have Lived, first published in 1974, in English in 1977):

One morning, I woke earlier than is my custom. I hid in the shadows to watch who passed by. From the back of the house, like a dark statue that walked, the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen in Ceylon entered, Tamil race, Pariah caste. She wore a red and gold sari of the cheapest cloth. On her unshod feet were heavy anklets. On each side of her nose shone two tiny red points. They were probably glass, but on her they looked like rubies.

She solemnly approached the toilet without giving me the slightest look, without acknowledging my existence, and disappeared with the sordid receptacle on her head, retreating with her goddess steps. She was so beautiful that despite her humble job, she left me disturbed. As if a wild animal had come out from the jungle, belonging to another existence, a separate world. I called to her with no result.

I then would leave some gift on her path, some silk or fruit. She would pass by without hearing or looking. Her dark beauty turned that miserable trip into the obligatory ceremony of an indifferent queen.

One morning, I decided to go for all, and grabbed her by the wrist and looked her in the face. There was no language I could speak to her. She allowed herself to be led by me smilelessly and soon was naked upon my bed. Her extremely slender waist, full hips, the overflowing cups of her breasts, made her exactly like the thousands year old sculptures in the south of India. The encounter was like that of a man and a statue. She kept her eyes open throughout, unmoved. She was right to regard me with contempt. The experience was not repeated.

No one remembers him for this.

Charles Bukowski is on video kicking and punching his girlfriend during an interview about his writing, and was said to have been physically abusive to multiple female partners. He is still celebrated worldwide as a great poet.

Louis Althusser strangled his wife to death in an act of cold-blooded murder. In his Wikipedia bio, he’s described as, “A French Marxist philosopher, whose arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism.”

As I write this, the murder of his wife doesn’t receive mention until the last paragraph, and then it simply says, “Althusser’s life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, he killed his wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her.”

He is widely celebrated. The murder of his wife is mentioned only in the context of his mental illness.

Valerie Solanas suffered from Schizophrenia. She was also a victim of childhood incest. Her father repeatedly raped her, and then she was sent to live with her grandparents as a teenager, and then her grandfather raped her, and then she ran away from home and became a sex worker.

The shooting of Andy Warhol is currently the first sentence of her Wikipedia bio. She is widely regarded and repeatedly portrayed as a worthless, angry, bat-shit crazy piece of human garbage. Where is this compassion that we are asked to have for male artists, for her?

She was a brilliant artist. The SCUM Manifesto is a masterwork of literary protest art, which is often completely misread. Much of it is actually a point-by-point re-write of multiple of Freud’s writings. It is a parody.

In his essay The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman, Freud suggests that a good treatment for lesbians would be having their (most likely already hermaphroditic) ovaries, and genitals removed and replaced with grafted “real” female genitals.

Freud’s exact words:

The cases of male homosexuality which (have) been successful fulfilled the condition, which is not always present, of a very patent physical ‘hermaphroditism’. Any analogous treatment of female homosexuality is at present quite obscure. If it were to consist in removing what are probably hermaphroditic ovaries, and in grafting others, which are hoped to be of a single sex, there would be little prospect of its being applied in practice. A woman who has felt herself to be a man, and has loved in masculine fashion, will hardly let herself be forced into playing the part of a woman…

In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas posits that a good “treatment” for straight men is to get their dicks chopped off: “When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman (males as well as females think men are women and women are men), and becomes a transvestite he loses his desire to screw (or to do anything else, for that matter; he fulfills himself as a drag queen) and gets his dick chopped off. He then achieves a continuous diffuse sexual feeling from ‘being a woman’. Screwing is, for a man, a defense against his desire to be female.”

Freud’s texts are rife with suggestions of female castration and hysterectomies as treatments for all sorts of psychological troubles suffered by women, and in response, The SCUM Manifesto is infamous for suggesting castration might improve the behavior of men.

Freud posited that heterosexual women are sexually passive, engaging in sex only because they want children. He invented the theory of “penis envy.” He claimed that because girls do not have  penises, girls come to believe they have lost their penises, and eventually, seek to have male children in an attempt “to gain a penis.” He believed women, on some deep, subconscious level, viewed themselves as castrated males. In his theory of psychosexual development he posited that for women, sex (with males) may also be a subconscious attempt to gain a penis.

In his essay, The Taboo of Virginity, Freud writes: “We have learnt from the analysis of many neurotic women that they go through an early age in which they envy their brothers, their sign of masculinity and feel at a disadvantage and humiliated because of the lack of it (actually because of its diminished size) in themselves. We include this ‘envy for the penis’ in the ‘castration complex’.”

Solanas, replaces the envy of the penis, not only with envy of the vagina, but most often, with women’s emotional openness, complexity and individuality as the focus of men’s envy. She writes of men: “The female’s individuality, which he is acutely aware of, but which he doesn’t comprehend, and isn’t capable of relating to or grasping emotionally, frightens and upsets him and fills him with envy. “

At the time of the writing of The SCUM Manifesto, Freud was a celebrated figure in psychology, and his theories were being widely touted in academic and popular spheres alike. Solanas took issue with this, and wrote The SCUM Manifesto as a parody, mocking the popular, sexist, and hetero-centric thinking on gender and sexuality at the time. But the text is a reversal. In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas directs everything Freud said with an equal amount of vigor and confidence back at men. So, instead of “female motherhood” being a primary drive, she reverses this to attack/analyze the “male sex drive” through the same line of thinking as Freud.

In his essay, Leonardo Da-Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, Freud hypothesizes that homosexuality in men stems from their relationship with their father and mother. He proposes that homosexuality (which he assumes is a bad thing) is caused by a relationship with a mother who is too tender to her son (as in all his texts, he repeatedly states that children are naturally sexually attracted to their parents of the opposite sex), and a mother who is, at the same time, too assertive and independent in relation to her own husband (the boy’s father.) This causes the boy to see his mother figure, who’s also an object of his  sexual desire in childhood, as a man, not a woman. And this makes the boy gay. He writes:

In all our male homosexual cases the subjects had had a very intense erotic attachment to a female person, as a rule their mother, during the first period of childhood, which is afterwards forgotten; this attachment was evoked or encouraged by too much tenderness on the part of the mother herself, and further reinforced by the small part played by the father during their childhood. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers on his homosexual patients were frequently masculine women, women with energetic traits of character, who were able to push the father out of his proper place. I have occasionally seen the same thing, but I was more strongly impressed by cases in which the father was absent from the beginning or left the scene at an early date, so that the boy found himself left entirely under feminine influence. Indeed it almost seems as though the presence of a strong father would ensure that thee son made the correct decision in his choice of object, namely someone of the opposite sex.

In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas takes this analysis and flips it on its head through an extreme feminist lens, where becoming a “real (straight) man” is already assumed to be a bad thing. She writes: “The effect of fatherhood on males, specifically is to make them, ‘Men,’ that is, highly defensive of all impulses to passivity, faggotry, and of desires to be female. Every boy wants to imitate his mother, be her, fuse with her. So he tells the boy, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, not to be a sissy, to act like a ‘Man.’ The boy, scared shitless of and respecting his father, complies, and becomes just like Daddy, that model of ‘Man’-hood, the all-American ideal — the well-behaved heterosexual dullard.”

While Freud accuses the mother of being to blame for the horrible fate of a boy becoming a homosexual, Solanas accuses the father of being to blame for the horrible fate of a boy becoming a straight man.

As you can see from the above, The SCUM Manifesto in many places is an almost line-by-line mockery of Freud’s writings on women and homosexuals, and was never meant to be read as a literal, earnest text throughout. This does not mean it is intended as a joke or to be taken lightly, though. As some may have noticed in the above text, it is not without serious, meaningful and resonant critiques of patriarchal institutions. There is a lot of truth in this parody. It is a political satire. It is simultaneously dead serious, yet written with a nod and a wink. In keeping with the protest art of the time, if you didn’t get it, she wasn’t going to explain it to you. She was happy to make cocky comments, like, “I mean every word of it,” knowing, and indeed, hoping that the “squares” who didn’t understand the sarcasm inherent to the foundation of the text, would be that much more shocked at her effrontery.

Valerie Solanas just said, in a modernized (now dated) vernacular, exactly what Freud had said about women, only about men, and everyone freaked out, because when we talk about men the same way men have talked about women for centuries, it reads as grotesque and insanely violent, un-compassionate, and shocking, which was exactly her point.

Her work is still misinterpreted as a literal text by many to this day.

After shooting Andy Warhol, Solanas turned herself in to the police. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and pleaded guilty to “reckless assault with intent to harm,” serving a three-year prison sentence, including treatment in a psychiatric hospital. In a darkly ironic twist of fate she was subjected to a nonconsensual hysterectomy during her hospitalization. Shortly after her release from prison, she became homeless, and never published another work.

Michael Alig, known for being a famous party promoter and club kid in the 1980s (in the film about his life, Party Monster, he was played by Macaulay Culkin), brutally murdered his friend, Andre “Angel” Melendez, over an argument about a drug debt.

Alig cut his friend up into pieces and threw him in the Hudson River. He’s been released from prison and is currently working as a club promoter in New York City.

Since his release, he’s also appeared in an indie film with artists I know personally, called Vamp Bikers, in which Alig plays a homicidal sociopath who slowly, brutally murders his friend.

I accidentally watched this at a film screening I attended in Brooklyn years ago, having no idea what I was getting into. It made me want to throw up, seeing him happily take part in a campy fictional portrayal of a murder so similar to the one he actually committed, and being celebrated for this. Many people around me were excitedly saying they hoped that Alig might attend the screening.

His website, michaelalig.com describes him as an “artist, writer, curator.” You can hire him to produce your party, or buy one of his many pop art paintings for $500 a pop.

I think this is all abhorrent. I’ve had debates with friends over this, and have been asked, “Well, he served his time. Shouldn’t we have compassion? He was young and on a lot of drugs when he did that. Don’t you think he should get a second chance?”

Perhaps. Perhaps a chance at living as a free person again, yes, perhaps that, but definitely not a chance to be celebrated for being the famous club kid who murdered his friend. And it’s not lost on me that the person he murdered was a poor, lesser known gay man of color, and I wonder if he would have gotten out of prison so early if he’d been the one who murdered Michael.

Perhaps more shocking than this, is the life and reception of essayist and novelist Norman Mailer. When speaking about feminism and women’s liberation Norman Mailer said: “We must face the simple fact that maybe there’s a profound reservoir of cowardess in women that had them welcome this miserable, slavish life.”

In his book Advertisements for Myself, Mailer claims that a writer without “balls” is no writer at all:

I have a terrible confession to make — I have nothing to say about any of the talented women who write today. Out of what is no doubt a fault in me, I do not seem able to read them. Indeed, I doubt if there will be a really exciting woman writer until the first whore becomes a call girl and tells her tale. At the risk of making a dozen devoted enemies for life, I can only say that the sniffs I get from the ink of the women are always fey, old-hat, Quaintsy Goysy, tiny, too dykily psychotic, crippled, creepish, fashionable, frigid, outer-Baroque, maquillé in mannequin’s whimsy, or else bright and stillborn. Since I’ve never been able to read Virginia Woolf, and am sometimes willing to believe that it can conceivably be my fault, this verdict may be taken fairly as the twisted tongue of a soured taste, at least by those readers who do not share with me the ground of departure — that a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.

I would argue that Norman Mailer spoke and wrote just as violently, grotesquely and shockingly about women as Valerie Solanas did about men. But he was not saying any of these things or writing his sexist texts as a parody or protest of his own subjugation.

Norman Mailer is still widely celebrated for both his fiction and essays, including numerous works that take a stand adamantly against feminism and women in general. In 1968 and 1980 he won the Pulitzer Prize. In 2005, he won the National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 1960, he attempted to murder his wife by stabbing her multiple times in the chest, barely missing her heart.

While his wife lay in the hospital in critical condition, a day after the stabbing, Mailer appeared in a scheduled interview on The Mike Wallace Show, where he spoke of the knife as a symbol of manhood. He was briefly arrested two days later, though his wife refused to press charges, saying that she feared for the safety of their children if she did so. She did, however divorce him once she recovered.

The parallels between Mailer and Solanas are as astonishing as their differences. The only reason I can find for the differences in how they are popularly viewed is that Mailer was a man, speaking and acting violently against women in a sexist society, and Solanas was a woman, doing the reverse in this same society.

I can’t help but conjure Solanas’s legacy when looking at the current questions that keep popping up on the subject of violence, art, and who we celebrate today. Do we forgive Louis C.K. for serially masturbating on countless women he worked with? What does forgiveness mean? Does it mean he continues to enjoy the same level of reverence and celebrity as before? Can we still enjoy Michael Jackson’s music knowing that he had ongoing sexual relationships with what seems to be an endless stream of young boys? Should we still be patronizing Woody Allen’s films? Is it alright to feel heartbroken over the loss of the Bill Cosby so many knew and loved? What of the beautiful works of so many beloved male authors I have spoken about above?

I do not have clear answers to these questions, nor do I think there is one rule of response that is correct for every situation, but I do know that the social hammer has come down hard on women who commit similar acts of violence, especially when those acts are directed at men. I do know that sexist bias has judged one of my artistic heroes much more harshly than her male counterparts.

I do not condone or celebrate Valerie Solanas’s shooting of Andy Warhol. But when people bring up Valerie Solanas as if she is a horrendous, murderous, bat-shit crazy, worthless, hysterical, violent criminal whose literary artwork is as valuable as the ramblings of a madwoman, suggesting that she should be written off as nothing more, I always think to myself, “Well, that’s exactly what she would have expected from this society.” Much less has changed since she first released the book in 1967, than I would have hoped. Those opening lines still remain eerily significant: “Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore, and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.”

http://www.full-stop.net/2019/05/21/features/chavisa-woods/solanas/

[reaperkaneki]

the three books ive read for pride month this year

i wish you all the best by mason deaver, a YA fiction book about a nonbinary teen who gets kicked out of their house by their parents and comes to live with their estranged sisten, who they haven’t seen for ten years after she ran away to college pending a fight with their conservative parents. a coming-of-age, coming-out story actually written by a nonbinary author, this one really hit home and—yes, completely expectedly—made me cry a lot. it was very good. i especially liked the parts about how attraction as a trans and especially nonbinary person is so so so complicated, because you start off thinking maybe i’m gay, or i’m straight, or actually i’m neither of those things because gender and attraction don’t play nice with trans identities, and the acknowlegement that there ARE nonbinary people who identify as bisexual despite the misconception that being bisexual is restrictive. its very good. it’s certainly a book i wish i couldve read in high school, as a nonbinary person who is also bisexual. SPOILER: as i was reading this book and seeing ben struggle over whether to try to reconnect with their parents or not, i kept shouting no! you don’t owe them anything!! cut them off!! because i was so immersed and relating so heavily to my own parents (who never did anything so violent but did many similar things) and i was really glad in the end that there was no actual reconcilliation, that one final chance was given and after that, ben said no, i deserve to be happy. and i really liked the not having to forgive your abusers just because they’re the parents who raised you.

my lesbian experience with loneliness by nagata kabi, which i think everyone else but me has already read, to the point where there’s two volumes of sequel out. i almost never read nonfiction, and especially biographies/memoirs, but i’ve heard so much about this one that i had to read it finally. and it is extremely relatable, not just as an afab lgbt individual, but as someone who struggles with depression and anxiety and the very (not uniquely, but certainly integrally) asian concept of familial responsibility, like you have to live up to their expectations and get a good job and in turn support them for supporting you, it was. yeah, thats how it goes. ive seen a lot of wlw sharing this one around as like a mirror image of being a baby lesbian and not understanding why theres such a disconnect between yourself and womanhood and being touch starved. and i can totally see that, despite not being a lesbian, and while i cant intrinsically relate to that unique experience, i do definitely understand the otherness, the unpleasantness of putting on womanhood. the cutesiness of the artwork really blindsides you as to the immensely heavy topics covered with absolute candidness, and had i not known going in that it’s a somewhat depressing work it would have probably hit me very hard with the realness. because yeah i certainly have been that person, lying in my bed, crying, wishing someone would love me, either as a lover as a friend, seeing my friends leave me bc i cant bother to put effort into relationships. reacting to any slight problem with i should just die already as the only solution. its honest, its real, its brutal.

unmasked by the marquess by cat sebatian, the first actual published romance novel ive ever bought and read, despite having played every officially localized otome to exist on console, and i didnt know what to expect other than a crossdressing mc—who, by the way, is referred to with she/her pronouns in text, BUT is explicitly in an author’s note referred to as nonbinary rather than just a cis woman in disguise. it’s a historical romance so there’s a lot of Really A Woman stuff going on but i can overlook it for the sake of the narrative. it’s obvious even in the text that robin neither thinks of herself as robert nor charity—but as robin, a gender neutral name that her (male, explicitly bisexual) LI refers to her as. it is made abundantly clear from the beginning that she hates wearing women’s clothes, that from the moment she stepped into men’s clothing and assumed a masculine role she felt more herself than she’d ever been, and that’s enough for me. i’ve always shied away from romance novels because, you know, trashy bodice rippers or w/e, but this one pleasantly surprised me with the depth of the characters (not just the main two, the side characters all have their interesting quirks as well—louisa reminds me of the side girl in ... jane austen’s emma, the one who emma’s trying to play matchmaker for and falls in love with an alright guy but emma thinks she can do better but really the first guy is the one her hearts set on who makes her happy? also she has Opinions on poultry and agriculture and Drainage and i love that), and the character growth. for example SPOILER—i really hated how alistair portrayed mrs allenby as this greedy mistress of his late father only after his money and prestige, when really (and im glad other characters knew and pointed out that she wasnt all that bad and your bastard half sisters are still your younger sisters you ass) the two of them loved each other and she understood his faults and in the end alistair acknowleged them and she came for him in his darkest hour. like, i was thinking the entire time like, he better make it up to her or else this man stil aint shit, and then he DID and my standards for men were so low that i was shocked and pleasantly surprised. good book.

[6stronghands]

Goodreads interview with Seanan McGuire

Author Seanan McGuire is the busiest person you know, even if you don't know her yet. She's that busy. McGuire has 33 novel-length works currently listed on her bibliography page, and that's not counting her pseudonymous acquaintance, Mira Grant. Scroll down and you'll find short fiction, essays, comics, nonfiction, and poetry. The crazy part? She didn't turn to full-time writing until about three years ago. Along the way, McGuire has won several marquee book prizes, including Hugo and Nebula awards for speculative fiction. Her series of fantasy novellas Wayward Children was recently picked up by the TV network Syfy for development. McGuire's brain is clearly a restless explorer, and her ambitious new novel, Middlegame, maps out another enormous chunk of notional real estate. In the new book, a pair of separated twins named Roger and Dodger endeavor to solve a series of increasingly sinister mysteries. Why were they separated? Why are they being hunted? Why are they developing world-breaking powers? And perhaps most importantly—why did they get such ridiculous names? The brother-and-sister team find themselves squaring off against a cabal of eldritch predators who have cracked the ancient code of alchemy, the missing link between science and magic. Speaking from her home outside Seattle, McGuire talked with Goodreads contributor Glenn McDonald about the new book, the weird science of alchemy, and the curious case of the prescription typewriter… Your bibliography is really astonishing. Are you just writing all the time? Seanan McGuire: Well, I'm not writing at the moment because I'm talking to you. But yeah, I was writing right up to the point where my phone rang. That's pretty much my life, because I am a workaholic and I enjoy what I do. GR: When did you make the leap into full-time writing? SM: I made the transition around January 2016, I think. The best advice I ever received from anyone, about professional writing, was from Todd McCaffrey. He said: Don't quit your day job until you're reasonably sure you can pay your bills off of your royalties. My last job was for a nonprofit, and I was basically sick all the time because I was writing all these books and I was still working a full-time day job. My friends never saw me. Like, never. Then the ACA happened, the Affordable Care Act. I don't think people realize what a difference that made, for all of us that work in the creative fields, to be able to get affordable insurance. I kept my day job for a few years after I strictly had to, just because I was terrified of dying under a bridge. The attacks on the ACA that are happening now are terrifying. Genuinely terrifying. Especially if they take away the protection for preexisting conditions. GR: Were you into writing as a little kid? 

I was. I did not figure out that writing was an option until I was about three. I started reading before I was talking, really. Then I started getting migraines because I was trying to write, but I didn't have the physical coordination to actually write at the speed that I could think. So the doctor prescribed a typewriter. Really. My mom went to a yard sale and got me this gigantic thing. It weighed more than I did. I started writing stories. At the beginning, they were all very factual. I would write stories about going to look for my cat. A lot of my earliest work was what we would classify as fan fiction now. There were a lot of adventures with My Little Ponies. The thing about being a genius when you're a kid is that you grow out of it. I was perfectly average by the time I hit school. But there was that brief, frustrating time when I was so far ahead of where they wanted me to be that they just didn't know what to do with me. I would write until 3 a.m. on my typewriter, which sounded like gunfire. GR: There seems to be some of that experience in the new book, with the child prodigies Roger and Dodger. Their relationship is fascinating; it's a sibling thing but also this deeper connection that suggests they're resonating on the cosmic level. SM: I love that this is my best-reviewed book so far and it's about characters with intentionally terrible names. It's a delight to have people have to try to talk seriously about the relationship between Roger and Dodger. It's terrible, and it makes me so happy. Roger and Dodger really are soul mates because they are functionally the same person. They're one person split into two to embody the Ethos [the alchemy formulation sought after in the story]. I don't think that's a huge spoiler; that's basically the premise of the book. We know that, but they don't for a good part of the story. Locking down their relationship, a lot of that was looking at my own relationships with my siblings and the places where it's good or weird or awkward. GR: For readers who might not be familiar, what do we mean when we talk about alchemy? SM: Alchemy is sort of like magical chemistry. It's this idea that you can transform parts of the world into other parts of the world. You just have to figure out the right combination of elements. The classical example is lead into gold. But alchemists also believed that there were spirits and such that could be called upon to help with these processes. It has some of what we might call sorcerous ideas. They were trying to find the magical formulae for these things, like the panacea, which is the cure for everything. Or the alkahest, which is the universal destroyer, a fluid that could dissolve literally anything. Then there's the Philosopher's Stone, which was said to give eternal life. Harry Potter fans are probably familiar with alchemy, more than previous generations, because of the character Flamel, who was an actual and quite famous real-world alchemist. GR: Did you research the actual history of alchemy?

Yes, this was the first time I really jumped into it. I did a lot of research, and research makes me so happy. I hunted down every book I could find on alchemy; they're all downstairs in the library now. Alchemy was a real thing, even if it never worked, even if they never turned lead into gold with these processes. Really smart people spent a really long time trying hard to make these things happen. I wanted to make sure what I was trying to do would fit into at least one school of alchemical thought—and there were many, many schools of thought. Alchemy sounds a little ridiculous now, but there was a time when it was a commonly accepted belief. GR: In the book you have a great villainous force in the Alchemical Congress, who are modern practitioners of the ancient art. They reminded me of historical groups that purported to be keepers of secret knowledge, like the Masons. SM: Right, or like the Order of the Golden Dawn. I never found a specific historical analog to that in alchemy, but maybe that's because they never got it to work. My Alchemical Congress is a group of people who can actually say that alchemy works. They're able to do all kinds of ethically negotiable things. With that kind of power, you're absolutely going to have a group that locks it down so it stays in what these people consider the right hands. GR: The cover image of the book depicts a delightfully creepy magical item known as the Hand of Glory, which also has a historical basis. Do you recall when you first came across that? SM: I feel like I've always known. I don't remember where I first read about that. I studied folklore in college, and the Hand of Glory was very common in certain parts of Europe. It's amazing. Everyone was chopping hands off for a while there. GR: When did you actually start writing Middlegame? SM: Middlegame is kind of unique. I'd been thinking about it for ten years, but it took me a while to develop the technical skill to tell the story and have it make sense to people who don't live inside my head. My brother must have heard me explain this story 90 times before I even sat down to write it. At this point in my career, I have the enviable problem that, for the most part, I don't get to just sit down and decide that I'm going to write. Everything has been pre-sold. I'm working off contracts until 2023. So I know exactly what I'm going to be writing every day when I get out of bed. GR: Don't you ever just get burned out? SM: Well, I think I'm dealing with ten years of systemic burnout because I'm exhausted all the time. But if you mean: Do I ever get to the point that I can't write? Thankfully, no. I think everybody's wired differently that way. So much of my storage space is devoted to people who don't exist. There's a certain concern that if I leave them alone, those parts of my brain will go offline. GR: There are fictional lives at stake! SM: There are! You don't depend on me for your persistence of existence. If I forget about you, you'll still be fine. GR: Your series Wayward Children was just picked up for development with the Syfy channel. Is there anything you can disclose about that? SM: No, not really. For the most part, for myself and other creators, we can't disclose anything because they don't want to let us know what's happening. We have family members that are going to ask, and they don't want us to be the leaks and endanger the production, so we're frequently not told things. I've basically just sold them my canvas, because I'm a wee baby author from the perspective of Hollywood. I have no properties under my belt, I have no track record. There's not a lot of bargaining power on my side of the table. But I trust the people that are involved in this project. And even if I didn't, honestly, television changes everything. The worst show that absolutely butchers my concepts—which is not a thing I'm expecting with this team at all—but the worst show in the world is going to be seen by more people than have read the first book. So that bumps my book sales, almost guaranteed. That sounds very mercenary, I'm sure, but that's just the math of it. Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, even Neil Gaiman—they weren't household names until they got something on TV. My mother raised three daughters on welfare, and she lives with me. I'm basically her sole support. I worry fairly regularly about what would happen if I get hit by a bus and can't write anymore. But what happens with a successful TV show—or even a failed TV show—is that my mom lives off my royalties for the rest of her life. GR: This is a question we've been polling authors on: When you read for pleasure, do you read one book at a time or do you have several going at once? Some people say it's insane to read multiple books at the same time, but I usually have two or three going. SM: Well, I'm currently reading six. GR: Is there anything else you'd like to highlight or discuss about the new book? SM: Middlegame is currently a standalone, but there are two follow-ups I'd really like to write, so please buy Middlegame from your local bookstore so that my publisher will let me continue!

[roselukes]

Offside l.h - Preface

July 2011

It was the summer before her senior year of high when Maya noticed a moving truck in the traffic behind her. “That’s weird,” she muttered to her best friend, Brooke, “no one ever purposely moves here.” Both girls laughed as they watched the truck turn across the train tracks behind them.

“I wonder who they are. Probably some old people who got tired of living in the city.” Brooke shrugged before nodding, putting her feet up on the dashboard.

“I bet your dad knows. Chief of police knows everyone’s business.” Maya rolled her eyes slightly and parked on the street in front of her house. She got out of the truck and walked inside to the living room with Brooke. “Dad, I’ve got a question for you.”

“What is it?” Brad asked, not looking up from his paper.

“Someone just moved into town. Who are they?” Brooke asked for her, sitting on the couch across from Brad’s recliner.

“Ah, yes, they said today that they would be here. That’s Andy Hemmings and his family. He’s going to be the new pastor over at Assembly of God. He’s got a son your age. I think his name is Luke. Your mother and I went to high school with Andy and his wife. I haven’t seen Andy since his brother’s wedding a few years ago.” Brad chuckled. “I’ll have to go see them when they’ve settled in.”

“Who are they?” Maya asked again, sitting with Brooke.

“Andy and his wife Liz. You met them when you were young at your uncle's wedding but I don’t think you have seen them since then. They have 3 sons: Ben, Jack, and Luke. Luke is your age, and Jack is about the same age as Drew. Ben’s quite a bit older.” Brad explained. “Why don’t you take that pie your mother made today over to their house?” Brad suggested, turning the page of his paper.

“Which house are they living in?” Brooke asked.

“Old man Jeff’s old house. Andy’s going to fix it up; I mean with three sons he’ll be able to fix it.” Brad smiled and set his newspaper down. “Connie” he called through the house, “give the girls that pecan pie you baked. They’re going to take it over to the Hemmings’ house.”

“Oh, that sounds like a wonderful idea.” Connie beamed walking into the room before putting the pie in a container. “It’d be so lovely if you girls could be friends with Luke. It’ll be hard for him to make friends in school with it being senior year, and all.” Connie smiled and handed the pie to Maya. “He was always such a nice boy”.

“Doubtful, but sure.” Maya shrugged. “Come on, Brooke, let’s go.” Maya stood up and grabbed the keys to her father’s truck. She walked out to the truck, Brooke following her. Maya handed the pie to her and slid into the driver’s seat. She drove across the tracks to where Old Man Jeffrey used to live. Jeffrey was an older man who didn’t have any family. He was pretty much a recluse. He only left his home to buy groceries, and even then, he didn’t speak to anyone unless he had to. But when he had spoken, he was a polite man. Maya had met him on a few occasions and never had seen a problem like some people in town who would complain about him.

“What if this Luke kid is cute? How are we going to decide who gets to date him?” Brooke asked, looking at the house.

“He probably won’t be, so you can have him.” Maya laughed and parked the truck on the street before getting out. Brooke handed her the pie and followed her up the path to the front door. Maya knocked gently before taking a step back. Inside, there was a mixture of voices.

“Jack, answer the door. I’m still down in the cellar cleaning up.” a voice hollered from inside. A blonde boy soon appeared through the window and walked to the door, sliding the glass door open.

“Can I help you?” he asked, looking at the two girls.

“Hi, I’m Maya Rosario. I live across the tracks. Uh, we brought you a pie.” Maya muttered, holding out the pie.

“Pecan pie, my favorite.” the boy grinned. “My parents are down at the church organizing some things; would you like to come in?”

“Oh, uh, sure.” Maya said, glancing at Brooke.

“I’m Jack, by the way.”

“Like I said, Maya and this is my friend Brooke.”

“It was very nice of you to bring a pie, thank you.” Jack smiled at the girls, waving at them to follow him into the kitchen.

“My mother made it.” Maya smiled. “She loves to bake for the new arrivals.”

“You said your last name was Rosario right”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, so your mother is Connie? Your dad went to school with my dad back in Bismarck.” Jack smiled.

“Yeah, he did.” Maya laughed a little. “He mentioned that today actually”

“Your dad is the reason we moved out here. He got my dad the job as Pastor at the old church.” Jack explained, setting the pie on a shelf in the fridge.

“Hey, Jack, where did dad put all the light bulbs? There’s 4 lights out in my room.” Another boy said, walking into the kitchen and stopped when he saw Brooke and Maya. “Well, hello there.” He smirked slightly; he was almost identical to Jack with a few differences.

“Luke, this is Maya and Brooke. They live across the tracks.” Jack explained. “This is Luke; he’s the baby of the family.”

“I’m the baby, too. My older brother is up in Fargo at North Dakota State University.” Maya explained.

“Hey, that’s where I’m starting in August.” Jack grinned. “What year is he?”

“He’s a senior. A chemical engineering major.” Maya smiled.

“What about you? Where do you go to school?” Luke asked, glancing at the pie.

“Brooke and I are both seniors at Harvey High School.” Maya said and Brooke nodded.

“I’ll be starting there, too. What kind of sports do they have?” Luke asked, leaning against the counter.

“Uh, Brooke and I both play volleyball. We also have a swim team and a hockey team.”

“Thank God, there’s hockey. I wasn’t ready to stop playing yet.” Luke grinned.

“Luke’s trying to get a hockey scholarship to UND.” Jack smiled, nudging Luke’s shoulder.

“Maya and I have both going to apply to UND. They won’t send acceptance letters until February, though.” Brooke said, smiling at the boys.

“What do you want to major in?” Maya asked, looking at Luke.

“Business. What about you?”

“I’m going for psychology. Brooke’s going for elementary education.” Maya smiled. “That is if we get in”

Jack smiled, “I’m sure you will. I just met you and I have faith you will, that says something”

The girls smiled, and slightly waved as Jack waved a small goodbye as he walked out of the room, leaving the girls with the tall blonde boy.

“Maybe we’ll see each other at UND sometime.” Luke chuckled, crossing his arms loosely.

***

Luke walked into the library, stomping out his winter boots on the rug in the entryway. He walked into the large room filled with shelves of books. He walked to the nonfiction aisle and began looking at titles. “Can I help you find something?” Maya asked as she finished putting away the last book on her cart.

“No, I’m just looking. I need something to read while there’s nothing to do at Tastee-Freez. Do you know how boring it is to sit in a cold building and wait for someone to get hungry?” Luke sighed, scanning the books.

“Yes, I do. What kind of book are you interested in?” Maya asked, pushing her cart into the small closet.

“I like historical books. Maybe something about wars.” Luke shrugged.

“Have you read Night by Elie Wiesel?” Maya asked and Luke shook his head. “We were required to read it for school last year, it’s about the Holocaust.”

“Was it good?” Luke asked, looking at her.

“I thought it was. I think you might enjoy it.” Maya smiled, pulling the book off the shelf. She handed the book to Luke. “Read it and tell me what you think.” She smiled, walking over to the desk.

“I will.” Luke grinned, handing her the book slip. She smiled and watched as Luke walked out of the building.

“Was that Luke Hemmings?” Brooke asked, coming out of the back room.

“Yeah, he was getting a book.” Maya said, looking back at her.

“You know, I think Luke likes you. He’s always coming around here.” Brooke smirked, nudging Maya.

“Gross, I don’t like Luke like that.” Maya made a face before turning back to her computer. “I don’t want to like him. He’s an arrogant and cocky jock; he only cares about himself and his stupid truck.”

“You totally like him.” Brooke giggled.

“No, I don’t. I hate him.”

***

“I can’t believe this day is here. Our little baby has finally graduated.” Brad grinned, wrapping his arm around Connie’s shoulders. “Come on, Andy wants to have a special service for all of the graduates.” The three of them walked down the street to Andy’s church. They walked inside and were welcomed by a majority of the town.

“Congratulations, Maya.” Liz smiled, embracing her gently at the doors of the church.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hemmings.” Maya smiled, hugging back gently. “Give my congratulations to Luke.” Connie said, wrapping her arms around her friend. “That boy always runs off when he gets the chance” Liz laughed

“You and Luke are both going to be attending the University of North Dakota, you two should think about talking to each other more. It might make your years of college easier.” Liz suggested, giving Maya’s arm a gently squeeze.

“That sounds like a great idea.” Maya forced a smiled, and looked around the church for Brooke.

[heatherdemetrios-blog]

The Space Between Breaths: Transitions in the Artistic Life

For the past year, I’ve been going through a transition, floating in a space between. It’s been three years since my first book came out. There was the before publication life, when I’d yet to sell a book and was dreaming hard. Then there was the after, where I struggled to learn the ropes of being a published author, yet still managed to write and sell one to two books a year, hustling like a mother. During that time there were aborted projects and disappointments, but I focused laser-like attention on my work and career, with little time for much else. Sometimes that paid off, and sometimes it didn’t. One thing it resulted in was a near-breakdown, spiritual and creative depletion, and an increasing existential dread that followed me around to the point where I felt like Edward Snowden, always looking over my shoulder. 

This was unsustainable. A life of waiting for the other shoe to drop is not a good life. And a writer who doesn’t write, or who writes but finds no joy in it, does not a happy writer make.  It also, incidentally, makes it hard to sell more books. The nervy you feel about a project somehow winds itself through the text, an X factor that makes or breaks a book. My books were breaking. I was breaking. So began my year of transition, which began in July 2016, an awakening of sorts that’s still very much in progress. This wasn’t intentional, not something I planned as a great experiment. It just sort of happened. Out of necessity and desperation and a nameless need. 

This year of transition actually started in Spring 2016, though I had no idea that this was what was happening. I started devouring books like I used to, back when I wasn’t writing three of them at a time. I literally bought and read every single JoJo Moyes book I could find (okay, I’ve saved a couple because it’s too depressing, a life without a JoJo book to look forward to), after discovering Me Before You on a Barnes and Noble table. I was working—I had revisions and copyedits and submissions. But when I sent in the last thing that was due, in mid-June, I unwittingly gave myself a for-real break. It was on accident—I didn’t realize I was taking a break until the month of July passed with me having written only a handful of words, most of them non-fiction. I got ideas, I threw ideas away—I briefly considered learning Russia and moving to Moscow. The bulk of my writing was for a residency application I never sent in, as well as the occasional blog post or lengthy email. I began meditating, reconnected with my spiritual side, read lots of books, treated myself to copies of Vogue, discovered the delights of the French 75 cocktail, and took a poetry class. I basked in sunshine and visited with friends and family. There were still stressful writerly moments: two rewrites gone bad, dismal royalty statements. But for the first time in years, writing was not the most important thing. The most important thing was me. It was as though my soul had given me one of those piercing looks and said, My dear, you are the canvas. 

Eureka. 

I followed my curiosity, each urge a trail of will-o’-the-wisps that led me deeper into my inner landscape, with its turbulent sea, floating glaciers, and craggy mountains set against endless dunes (yes, somehow my innards resemble Morocco, Ireland, and Iceland). In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert says: I believe that curiosity is the secret. Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living. She’s absolutely right. I found such joy poking around in New Age stores and going down the Wiki hole of Romanov research and planning a trip to Prague. I delighted in the plethora of self-help books I kept hearing about, got into essential oils, and finally took a Pilates class. I bought strange rings and drank beer and even started liking kale. I got a Reiki treatment and bought my first deck of Tarot cards and I campaigned for Hillary Clinton. I bought a Nasty Woman shirt and protested with thousands of women all over the world, reigniting that little Marxist-Anarchist activist that has been hiding inside me since the Bush years. I made a few big life decisions, some quite seismic, some still in progress. I grieved, felt confusion, wonder, awe, gratitude, love, solidarity, despair. I probably drank more wine after November 8th than in the rest of my life combined. I cooked my first steak. I began living according to these wise words from Elsie De Wolfe: I am going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life. Fresh flowers scattered about the house. Crystals lined up on windowsills. A skirt with red roses splashed across the fabric. I see the changes that all this adventuring has wrought everywhere: in my home, my body, my mind, my spirit. And yet, the writing will not budge. 

I am still trekking up a damnably high mountain, hoping to reach a summit and praying there’s a nice little valley on the other side of it, with cool spring water and long, fragrant grass I can lie in when I look at the stars. Alas, creativity is uncharted territory—ever ineffable, a tricksy landscape complete with quicksand, dark forests, and, well, you get the metaphor. I confess, there have been a few occasions in which I actually uttered the phrase, Why am I doing this? Or I don’t want to be a writer anymore. I’m not sure if I meant it or not. I suspect maybe I did. It sounds ever so wonderful to leave work at work, to have boundaries between oneself and what one does for a living, to not be in constant artistic torture. 

The election and its aftermath was a huge blow that I’m still recovering from. I don’t think I realized how much it affected my ability to be creative until quite recently, when I realized I have to rewrite a bogart of a book I’m working on for the third time. I cannot overstate how unlike me this is. I’ve never spent two years after selling a book trying to rewrite it. It’s madness. Maddening. But when I began to connect the dots, I could see that the bulk of the problem began in the beginning of 2016—a coincidence? I think not. As I said in an email to the book’s editor: I’m sorry for being the world’s shittiest writer. I blame Trump. 

I blamed my mental health and my infernal inability to understand how time works. I blamed New York City for being so goddamn expensive and loud and distracting and fabulous. I also blamed myself, for not taking my own good advice that I give to my clients and that I myself know works. I only give advice when I’ve learned something (usually the hard way), when I know that something is tried and true. As a creativity coach, I tell my clients that each book is a different beast, and that’s true. And also that writing is a marathon (not a race), that you will never be a master, that you will always be learning, and that you should trust the process: the not knowing, the frustration—these are just hazards of the job and an essential part of the process. But each time I find myself uncertain creatively, these lessons are hard to remember. A girl has to eat, you know. 

One thing my meditation teachers like to talk about is the space between breaths. In mindfulness meditation, you focus on the inhale and exhale, using it to anchor your mind in the present. Between each round of inhalation and exhalation, there is a pocket of pure being, where your body has a moment to bask in its existence, where nothing is required of it. It can’t last very long because your lungs need air, but for just a sliver of time, you are infinite. Free-floating. This is also a space for transition, much shorter than my year of transition, but equally powerful. You can discover things there, though it may take you years, or even a lifetime to figure out. You might even see what you’re made of. 

This is an essential part of the meditation process. These pockets of no-breath are not simply a bridge between breaths, links on the path to nirvana. They are teaching moments, rich in the kind of knowledge that lives deep in your bones. It’s the same with the transitions in an artist’s life. The space between projects, between ideas, between inspiration and creative wastelands—this is, paradoxically, where the good stuff lives. Transitions are opportunities to grow, to heal, and to change. They give you space (whether you want it to not) to reassess your work, your craft, your goals. These sometimes involve dark nights of the soul, real reckonings that bring who you are and why you do what you do into sharp focus. Sometimes you won’t like what you see. Transitions, from an artistic point of view, are absolutely necessary. Think about the period when Bowie fled to Berlin, intent on getting clean and reconnecting to his art. He called his cocaine years in Los Angeles, where he embodied the Thin White Duke persona, “the darkest days of my life.” Despite being a rock star, he was going broke and Berlin, at the time, was a cheap place to live while he was in recovery. In Europe, he began visiting galleries, working on self-care through literature and classical music education, and, of course, kicking his cocaine habit and exploring Berlin’s music scene. His roommate was Iggy Pop, and I like to imagine them sitting around late at night, trading notes and blowing each other’s minds. What resulted was the Berlin trilogy, a rich artistic period and a turning point in his life. 

Of course, not all transitions need to be so dramatic, and I’m still trying to figure out what this one means for me. When I look back, what will I call this year (or, God forbid, years)? Will I look on it fondly, or shudder, grateful that it’s over? I can’t imagine not being thankful for it. Already, I’m seeing my interests in what I want to write expand in unexpected ways. Adult fiction, young adult nonfiction, historical. I’m not quite sure where I’ll land. I’m getting ideas, but am wary of investing too much in anything. I think I’m still getting my sea legs. Meditation, exercise, and healthy eating habits are helping. As is travel and working with my clients, who inspire me every day. I’m taking lots of notes because I suspect that as much as I’m learning right now about what it means to be an artist in transition, I suspect there’s even more to glean from this time later, when I can see how all the dots connected. 

Being a creative doesn’t suit our modern world, not if you’re an Artist with a capital A. Because art needs quiet, time, space, privacy. All things that are hard to come by these days, especially in Brooklyn. I stopped using my private Facebook account, rarely leave the apartment, and turn a deaf ear to industry chatter. It’s been a long time since I finished a project. Everything I’m working on is in a different stage and often ends up being cast aside or totally reworked. So of course the age old question of how to make a living as an artist rears its ugly head. If you aren’t producing, you aren’t getting paid. So while artistic explorations sound great on paper, in reality, it’s the paper itself you start worrying about. 

It’s becoming increasingly hard for artists to make a living—just take a look at Trump’s budget proposal, with threatens to cut the NEA out of existence. It’s especially difficult for writers because of the plethora of content out there. Jesus, how many blogs and websites and articles can exist? With newspapers and magazines folding left and right, writers are forced to make some pretty tough choices. These concerns are ever present, and they will be for the foreseeable future. Of course, being an artist has always involved financial acrobatics. Chekhov paid the bills through a medical practice, and Tolstoy had to self-publish War and Peace. I’m in good company. I’ve very much begun to appreciate Elizabeth Gilbert’s words in Big Magic about how your job as an artist is to take care of your creativity, not the other way around. It’s been interesting, cobbling together an income that all leads back to writing, but isn’t necessarily writing. Teaching and coaching and editing allows me to talk about what I love—writing, the artistic process, and creative living—and to help my fellow writers on their own journeys. It also gives me the chance to take care of my writing, rather than requiring it to pay all the bills. I’m already seeing the seeds I’m planting blossoming. For the first time in a long time, I’m allowing myself to consider alternative ways of living and alternative approaches to my writing. Maybe I don’t publish a book every year. Maybe I don’t only write in YA. Maybe I play a whole lot more in my creative process. Maybe I take time to take care of myself. 

The journey continues, endless and exciting and horrible and wonderful, an adventure I’m honored to have. I take a breath, exhale, and rest in the transition, looking forward to whatever comes next.

[libraryreads]

Readers’ Advisory Interview: LynnDee Wathen

We here at LibraryReads release a monthly list of the top ten most-nominated titles that librarians across the county love - we do this so that librarians can add tools to their Readers’ Advisory toolbox to better help library patrons. But for some of us, RA is a tricky thing. How do we bring it up to patrons? What does Readers’ Advisory look like? Which resources are the most useful? In the first in a recurring series, we ask librarians to share their own experiences, tools, and advice. 

Let’s get started. Who are you and where do you work?

Hello! My name is LynnDee Wathen and I am the Assistant Branch Manager at the Oak Grove branch of the Mid-Continent Public Library in Missouri.

How did you become a librarian? What was the process or history that got you here?

I grew up going to the library all the time, but never really thought about being a librarian. It wasn’t until I was working at the library on campus while in undergrad that it was presented to me that librarianship could be a thing. My supervisor suggested I major in library science, but being a 20something punk I was like “don’t tell me what to do”. So I majored in sociology instead.

After graduation, I got a job at Springfield-Greene County Library as a circulation assistant, and after I had been there for about 6 months it finally hit me that the library was my jam. It mixes my two favorite things: people & books.

So I worked at SGCL for about 2.5 years, worked at Maricopa County Library District in Arizona for about 10 months before making my way back to Missouri and with MCPL. I was working full time at the Parkville branch for a little more than a year and a half before being promoted to assistant branch manager.

Have you always been a fan of Readers’ Advisory? If not, how did you become a fan?

I’ve always been a fan of recommending books to people, but I didn’t know about Readers’ Advisory until I started going to workshops and then taking a class in grad school specifically about RA. Once I realized that Readers’ Advisory was a thing, I was all on board.

What is the genre/section of the library you’re most comfortable with?

I feel pretty good with YA, historical fiction, and nonfiction.

What is the genre/section of the library you most fear?

Oof, uh I would say YA contemporary, romance, religious fiction, scifi/fantasy, and paranormal. I wouldn’t say I fear them, but I don’t read those genres as frequently (or at all) so it’s harder for me to come up with titles for those.

When someone asks for a reading recommendation, how do you go about answering their question?

If they’re wanting read-alikes, then I go to Novelist or Goodreads. If they’re just wanting something to read, I ask them what kind of genres they like and what authors and then I kind of go from there. I might look up to see if an author they like came out with a new book or find a similar author. Kind of just depends!

What is your favorite book (or books!) to recommend to people?

Oooh don't get me started with my faves! Currently I would say: REJECTED PRINCESSES by Jason Porath, HAMILTON: THE REVOLUTION by Lin-Manuel Miranda, THE BOSTON GIRL by Anita Diamant, NOTORIOUS RBG by Irin Carmon, The Unwind dystology by Neal Shusterman, THE WRIGHT BROTHERS by David McCullough, UPROOTED by Naomi Novik, LOCK IN by John Scalzi, and THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL (comic series) by Ryan North. I try to have a title for each genre if I can.

You're a booktuber - how does social media help you find titles and/or sharpen your RA skills?

Well I got into #booktube through #bookstagram, which is just pictures of books on Instagram. I would say that social media is great for connecting to other readers and librarians, who in turn introduce you to titles you might not have heard of or considered. What's helpful is the wrap-ups & reviews on booktube & bookstagram; these are usually coming from readers who have no ties to the book industry, so they're unbiased. Twitter is another great place to connect; it's how I found out about #diversathon & #ownvoices, which are movements for readers to read more diversely, and for publishers to (hopefully) publish more diversely.

How does LibraryReads help you with Readers' Advisory? (Or does it?)

Ok, so this is where I fail at librarianship, because I actually don't currently use LibraryReads (insert epic facepalm). But I promise I'll start! It's just one of those sites that's not prevalent on our work computers. (like I access NoveList through our main website.)  But I promise I will rectify this travesty immediately!

What RA advice would you give a younger version of yourself?

Don't be afraid to recommend/suggest titles you haven't read. I used to think like, how can I tell someone to read this book that I myself haven't read? But now if someone is wanting a title in a genre I don't read, then I have no problem going on to Goodreads or social media (or LibraryReads!) to find something for the reader to read. Oh, and don't take it personally if you recommend a title and the reader doesn't like it. What's great about reading is that each reader brings their own experience to the story, so the story touches each reader in unique ways. Also, differences in opinion can open the door to dialogue and make for great discussion.

Thanks, LynnDee! You can see what she’s currently reading on Twitter, Instagram, GoodReads (under LynnDee), and (of course!) YouTube.

[islamcketta]

Station Eleven

When I asked my husband for Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven for Christmas, I don’t think I’d heard of the coronavirus yet. I like dark novels and have often found that reading about the worst of things makes me feel better about my everyday. Station Eleven did not disappoint, especially because the way the structure flips quickly enough back and forth between the panic of a rapidly-spreading pandemic and the life that continues (in its own way) in the way after meant I didn’t have to bear the “what if we all die” feeling that some books carry. So it was dangerous, but not too much so. It’s a very satisfying read overall with strong characters and a fresh take on life after the apocalypse. I loved the way the threads of the story eventually came together.

If you’re at all afraid, I would not suggest you read this book right now, but do put it on your list for later.

What Station Eleven Taught Me About Now

Be prepared. I do not feel the need to pack seven carts full of groceries into my home the way that Jeevan did, but we have set aside enough food and essentials that we’ll be okay if we have to self-quarantine for a couple of weeks. I’ve since read that having a little (not a crazy amount) of back-stock on hand can also help ease supply chain problems for others later.

Books matter. Not that I needed to be taught this, but the way that Kirsten clings to her copy of Dr. Eleven is an important reminder that we cling to things that make us feel civilized. And for good reason. I’ve read more prepper guides in the last month than I’ll admit, but the things that always come back to me are how humanizing small luxuries like a beloved chocolate bar or a great shower can be when we feel at our worst.

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

By the time I finished Station Eleven, the news of a coronavirus in China felt distant enough that I picked up the copy of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History that my neighbor had given me as we were exchanging Thanksgiving dishes. I don’t normally read nonfiction, certainly not of the historical reportage type, but I figured if I was ever going to read that book, it would/should be after finishing Station Eleven. I’m glad I did, because I learned a lot about how viruses work and about what can go wrong in a society during a pandemic. There was far too much minutia about individual doctors for my taste, but I appreciate the work they did.

I do not believe that we are in for anything nearly as bad as the Spanish Flu, but I do think there are lessons from that time that can help us minimize the spread and mortality of COVID-19.

What The Great Influenza Taught Me About Now

Infections come in waves. There were actually two infection periods for the Spanish Flu, and those who were exposed to the first were mostly immune to (or at least suffered far less from) the second.

Viruses mutate over time. As they emerge in the human population, they are not necessarily at their most dangerous (the first spring wave of the Spanish Flu was not as lethal as the later wave), but they do mutate and over time “virulence stabilizes and even recedes”. You can read more about how this might be working with COVID-19 here.

Quarantine and self isolation helps. Not only are you limiting your potential avenues for transmission by self-isolating (before or after being infected), you are giving the disease time to mutate into something less lethal.

We are lucky to have already identified COVID-19. The Spanish Flu was not conclusively even identified as an influenza until much after the epidemic. Today researchers are working directly with an identified pathogen and trying to develop tests and a vaccine, rather than spending years trying to figure out what the disease even is.

Accurate information saves lives. During the Spanish Flu, the media in San Francisco likely saved lives by sharing accurate, unvarnished information with local citizens. This is a big worry for me at a country level because the president is more interested in his ego than in getting people the information they need to prepare. I’m looking directly to resources I trust, like King County Public Health and this map from Johns Hopkins, for my updates.

Large public gatherings are a bad idea during times of contagion. There were far too many stories in this book of public officials who were warned to cancel large events and did not. If you’re interested in specifics on how that affected mortality, this is interesting. We aren’t currently avoiding the grocery story (despite the general zombie vibe there) or daycare (the source of all contagion, really), but my workplace is closed and I’ll be skipping this spring’s slew of arts fundraising events.

The Ungrateful Refugee

This book by Dina Nayeri was an essential read for our time before the novel coronavirus. I’m still immersed in its pages, but the way she combines the memoir of her own experience as a refugee with the research she did as a new mother into the refugee waves of now is deeply artful and deeply humanizing. Her writing is as beautiful as her introspection.

What The Ungrateful Refugee Taught Me About Now

It is always easy to turn inwards and see only your own experience. It is especially important in times of crisis that we do not, to the extent that we are able.

The more we connect with others, the better we will see ourselves. When Nayeri sees a girl in a refugee camp who will not remove her pink backpack, she sees her own trauma and the need to cling to the one thing that feels like stability. And in reading about it I see ways I am paralyzing myself when I most need to find grace.

Every human deserves and wants dignity. The more we treat each other with dignity, the more we will all respond with it in kind. The way my husband described how people are treating our grocery store clerks is abhorrent. We’re all humans on this planet. If you can afford to give someone a smile or a kind word, please do.

The Plague

I actually haven’t started re-reading The Plague, so I’m not certain it’s the best thing to turn to at this exact moment, but I do recall that I read it during a particularly dark time of my life and I was very much reassured by the way Camus highlighted what Mr. Rogers would call “the helpers,” the people who went out of their way to make sure that society survived.

What The Plague Taught Me About Now

There is good in and around us. Look for it.

Do what you can to help others.

Anything that Gives You Pleasure

The one thing I very much have stockpiled in anticipation of being at home for the duration is books. I started with an indulgently large order from Powell’s and then let myself go hog wild at the AWP virtual book fair where hundreds of small presses are selling their wares, often at a wonderful discount. Read or watch anything that reminds you that COVID is only part of life.

Other Things I’m Thinking About

Kids are generally less vulnerable. According to this piece on NPR, kids go through so very many COVIDs early in life that they are not at risk now. This has to be a relief for any parent.

The digital age has added some layers of protection and stripped away others. It’s nice that many people can work from home. I wish that everyone could (or could get paid in absentia). I did wake up in a cold panic the other morning with the realization that if my husband and I both died (highly unlikely, but tell my anxiety that), my son would have no way of contacting the people who can take care of him because he doesn’t have a relationship with our phones.

Panic is paralyzing; avoid it at all costs. There are hashtags on Twitter that I won’t click anymore because the fear has already taken people way beyond a functional place. If you’re scared about something concrete, like not having a list of emergency numbers on paper somewhere handy, fix it and try to move on. Turning off the voices of panic from outside the house is not the worst idea, either (she tells herself).

Supplies are available in places other than grocery stores. We’ve been ordering nonperishables (again, only a week or two ahead) from Target. It saves us from going out and also lets people who need to get things more immediately have some hope of finding them on a nearby shelf. Free shipping over $35, but you want a week’s lead time.

Also avoiding full isolation. I don’t mean in a physical sense. If your fear/worry/general busyness has kept you from contacting your loved ones, try a text or a call. I’d planned to write some “COVID missives” to pen-pals I’ve neglected before I started writing this post (and I still will, here eventually).

Finding joy, even if in alternate universes. My husband and I have immersed ourselves in as many comedies as we can in the evenings, but the most effective panacea has been streaming a favorite design show from the UK in the 2000s. It feels good to immerse myself in something that isn’t about disease at all. And as part of our prepping, we have a new set of soccer nets arriving soon, JIC daycare finally closes.

I wish you health and peace of mind. If I read anything particularly interesting while shut in, I’ll share it with you here.

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