#The Literary Vixen

[theliteraryvixen]

Readers Take Denver 2024 - I'm Influencing!

I am SO excited to be attending Readers Take Denver 2024 as an influencer! There are so many amazing authors, narrators, and vendors attending. Did I mention a red carpet event with after parties? For more information, visit: https://www.readerstakedenver.com/

[bizlybebo]

the rags they were woring...

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Foxglove

(Written by me. Originally published by Literary Times Magazine.)

I didn’t mean to summon the ghost.  Okay, I meant to, but I regretted it.

My friend Cyprus knew it was a bad idea from the start.  “You talk this way about every girl for two weeks, then you move on to someone else.  Just put a curtain over the portrait and forget about it.”

“I can’t.  Thinking about her hurts, and just the prospect of not thinking about her hurts more.  I dream about her pretty much every night.”

Cyprus closed his eyes.  His gold-rimmed glasses made him look like he was from another century.

I leaned across the table, making my eyes big.  “You can do it, right?”

“I’ve only recreated the ritual in a classroom setting, and only for animal spirits.”

“You’re a straight-A student.”

“That doesn’t mean I can do it.”

But he could.  

Ever since I moved here, the portrait of the actress had smirked down at me like a vixen.  She’d died young, in the early 1920s – this house is split into condos now, but it used to all be hers.

After my last breakup, I looked up photos of her.  She was most active during the 1910s, when stage actresses had a kind of dreamlike beauty: long tresses of dark hair, and huge, dewy, downturned eyes in the middle of a misty face.

I put the laptop down and went to bed thinking about her.  I dreamed about her pressed against me, warm and alive.  Since then, I couldn’t stop.

Cyprus showed up with a briefcase and his cat.

“Before I start, you should know I’m not doing this for you.”  He put his cat carrier in the center of the room.  He drew the sigils around it in chalk.  He set up the candles.  “I’m doing this because my professor said I could use it as an extra credit assignment.”

“It won’t hurt your cat, right?”

“I would never endanger General Pawshington.”

He had me sit cross-legged on the floor, then drew sigils around me too.  

Then he opened his briefcase and took out a yellowed sheet of paper.  “I can only say the words and perform the gestures,” he said.  “Your yearning has to be strong enough to call her here.  And then if she doesn’t want to stay, she can leave.”

“Got it.”

He started to chant, making swift finger motions, and I snickered.  

He paused.  “You have to think about her, or it won’t work.”

“Sorry.”

This time when he started to chant, I kept my eyes fixed on her portrait.  Even when she began to materialize over the cat carrier – out of the corner of my eye, I could make out the shape of a tiny hurricane, twisting into the shape of a woman.  I felt like if I looked at her, she’d vanish.

I imagined a relationship with a ghost.  A ghost would never change – if they wanted change, they wouldn’t be here.  They usually stayed tethered to one place.  I imagined coming home to her day after day, her tether to the outside world.

“No,” she screamed.  “No!”

I looked over at her.  She was as beautiful as her pictures, her black dress fading into gray mist at the skirt.  But she didn’t look sad or bemused, like she did in her photos.  She looked furious, the whites showing around her pupils, her dainty mouth twisted in rage.

She looked between me and Cyprus.  “Why would you do this?”

“I love you,” I blurted, at the exact same time Cyprus said, “Extra credit.”

She screamed so loud the cat hissed and the windows seemed to shake.

“Um,” I said, looking to Cyprus for guidance.

He didn’t look back.  Just stared up at her with fascination and regret.

She dematerialized, dissipating into mist that seemed to scatter against the ceiling, maybe through it.

“Was that…supposed to happen?” I asked.

“Some ghosts react badly to being summoned.  But if she’s unhappy here, she can return to the afterlife.”

She did not, for whatever reason, return to the afterlife.

It turned out that being haunted was not a fun experience.  I thought if I could just tell her about myself, she’d like me as much as I thought I’d like her, but she wasn’t interested in that.

She slammed doors.  Chilled rooms.  Flung objects.  Sobbed in the night.

“Can you please just talk to me?” I pleaded, after being woken up at 3 AM for the third time that week.  “I’m sorry!  I just wanted to meet you, that’s all!”

You know how when you’re in bed, you sometimes look up at the ceiling fan and picture it falling?  Well, that’s what happened next.  Fortunately, no bones were broken.

Cyprus’s extra credit assignment became his thesis project.  He came back as my neighbor was complaining to me about the new “poltergeist problem,” unaware I was responsible for it.

“And who are you?” the neighbor asked Cyprus.  “An exorcist?”

“Close.  I’m a student from the Providence College of Necromancy.”

“Great.  A student.  They always send kids to solve adult problems these days.”

Inside, Cyprus called, “Foxglove!”  For some reason, I don’t think I ever thought to address the actress by name.  “Foxglove, you have to stop, or they’re going to send an exorcist to get rid of you.”

She materialized out of the air like mist – the first time I’d seen her since we’d initially summoned her.  She really was so beautiful, her dark hair floating around her like a dream.  “It’s not fair,” she said.  “It’s my house.”

“I know,” he said, sadly.  Well, sadly for him.  He had a catlike way of emoting.

“I remember Heaven in flashes.  I don’t think you’re supposed to remember it while you’re on Earth,” she said, sounding frustrated but relieved at having someone to talk to.  “I want to go back so badly, but I don’t want to leave my life again.  All I can do is yearn for what I had before.”

“Maybe you can tell me about your life,” said Cyprus, not disguising the interest in his voice.  “I could write it down, and publish it.  And people could read about you.”

Her eyes looked sad, dewy, and hopeful, like they did in the portrait.  “I’d like that.”

I felt sidelined, like a third wheel.  It bothered me that she forgave his selfishness just because he was open about it – I wanted someone I could love, he wanted an extra credit assignment.

My goal was selfish too, in the context that I’d pulled her away from her life – or afterlife – in the hopes that she’d be a part of mine.  But wanting something to love wasn’t supposed to be selfish.  And if it was, that was supposed to be forgivable, if only because it was so human.

I’d apologized.  He hadn’t.  He was open about his self-interest, his fascination with the predicament he’d created.  But I could tell that if she forgave one of us, it would be him.  If she fell in love with one of us, it would be him.

That night, he stayed over to listen to her talk about her childhood, her poverty, her discovery.  About dancing and singing and playing Lady Macbeth, before performances were immortalized on film, when acting was still ephemeral.  About the day after she did too much laudanum and drifted under the surface of the tub.

She wanted to pull herself back past the surface, but she couldn’t.  She just couldn’t will her limbs to move.  “They say that those who take their own lives can’t get to Heaven,” she mused.  “I did.  But maybe that’s because I really wanted to live.”

Cyprus was listening, his recorder on the table next to him, taking notes.  He was interested in every word, wanting to capture as much as possible.  His intense curiosity, the Victor Frankenstein in him, was what made him a great student.

“I have some more questions I want to ask, about certain aspects of your life,” he said, switching off his recorder.  “Can I come back Thursday night?”

“I’ll be here,” she said.  Her dress had turned from black to white, and the mist she emanated had paled.

I could have tried talking to her.  

Instead, I called my ex, and told her what happened.

“It’s just like with me, James,” she sighed.  “You wanted her till she was a real person.”

It was true.  I’d never met a girl I could love more than an idea.

“It’s lonely for me too,” I said.

“I know.”

“Why do you think it’s so hard to love someone right?”

“Because when you do, it becomes something you want to give to them, not something you want to take.”  She said it like she’d been thinking about it for a long time, waiting for someone to ask.  “I think that’s why we spend most of our lives learning how to do it.”

[askflightybroad]

Any favourite reads? Not specifically pertaining to books, but any general text based medium?

What avid inquiries into my preferences of literature. I suppose it's only polite to indulge with a response just as enthusiastic. Brace yourselves for, as a certain Strider would say, a shit ton of text.

Approximately two-thirds of the work I peruse do not have titles. I am inclined to believe they are more akin to a literary fever dream than anything I, or any other currently existing mortal soul, have the capacity to fully comprehend; much less describe. I will, however, in good faith, suggest some texts that I consider widely-known.

I particularly enjoy Studies on Hysteria by Freud, though I suppose I more-so enjoy exploring the founding text from which he would later establish his psychoanalytic kingdom. And in any case, acknowledging just how frequently he injected his patients with copious dosages of morphine deserves further recognition, don't you think? I have a re-interpretive historical text in the works regarding his potentially homoerotic relationship with physician Josef Breuer, and studying the paper directly has been of instrumental significance.

Other takes I've greatly enjoyed include The Meaning of Truth by William James; The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath (especially the pieces Recantation, 1956, and Monologue at 3 a.m.); and Aye, and Gomorrah. by Samuel R. Delaney.

Oh my, and how could I forget. The all-time classic, the delightful vixen of this ungodly hour, the pinnacle of modern creativity that Shakespeare can only weep at the mention of.

The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Myers.

[ronaldparlato]

It's only a matter of time before the real feminism of Aeschylus and Shakespeare returns - time to forget faux, trans-this and trans-that womanhood

[invinciblerodent]

I both welcome the Iona posting, love your consistent pro bisexual stance and get that sometimes you just gotta seek out the worst take of your life, because brains are weird. Have a great day

Aww, thank you, that's so sweet! ❤️❤️ I'm glad you enjoy both those things- I can say with certainty that it will all continue, lol.

I mean, how could it not. Have you seen this woman?

Have you beheld her little face? Witnessed her (bisexual) swag and cute new outfit? Caressed her sweet cheeks (and i'm talking about both face-cheeks and butt-cheeks) with a tender, loving touch? No?

Well, you should. So hop on that.

..... but jokes aside, honestly, while it is sometimes just very simply funny (or even somewhat cathartic in a way) to read the completely off the wall, buck wild takes that some people may post, I do find it to be semi-important (at least to me personally), to have at least a cursory awareness of as many possible reads of a piece of media as it's.... I guess feasible to be aware of. Mostly as a way to try and step outside of the paradigm in which I know I normally exist, but sometimes also just as a way to sort of check myself, and confirm that at least I don't seem to have X bias, or haven't misread something by that much, lol.

Like, I was still taught (rigorously, over and over again, in every single class I have ever taken that had anything to do with literary-/media-analysis) that as long as you can find confirmation of your interpretation within the base text and aren't explicitly contradicted by other parts of it, any subjective interpretation can be just as valid as another. So it always fascinates me a bit when I see someone ignore this very basic tenet, and kind of pick and choose which bits of the base text (whatever that "text" may be) they want to take into account, and which parts they want to ignore for no reason other than that it doesn't fit their view.

How unwilling certain people are to change their minds if the text happens to contradict their initial assumptions, that's just so wild to me.

I'm obviously not saying that any base text would be prefect and without flaws or potential contradictions, but so often, the fervor with which people can cling to certain interpretations (even if they're contradicted consistently at every turn, are called out for bigotry in it, and their theories fall apart at the first deeper glance) is just so interesting.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm really going with this, it's quite late and I'm a bit loopy- I'm kind of just rambling a little bit at you and can't think of a way to end this, so look at my pretty, shrewd, slimy vixen of a woman instead.

I bet Astarion even calls her a vixen sometimes. Like I may see her as more similar to a weasel if we're going for animal symbolism (small. semi-feral. cute little face. will absolutely fuck you up.), but a fox is undoubtedly a more flattering comparison. Plus, "oh, you vixen❤️" is definitely a far sexier thing to purr into one's lover's ear than "my darling little weasel❤️".

[eri-nelson]

Breaking #Stereotypes: #Autistic Event Planner #Challenges Assumptions

#liveshow #podcast #author #booktok @Authorsamanthapicaro @The Literary Vixen

[televisionpromos]

Riverdale 7x08 "Hoop Dreams" Promo - THE NEW KID IN TOWN — In order to keep Riverdale High’s basketball legacy alive, Frank and Archie recruit a new player to the team – a quiet farm boy named Reggie Mantle. Tabitha’s return to school inspires Toni to start a literary society for Riverdale’s Black students. Alice forces Betty to join the River Vixens, and Kevin starts a new job at the Babylonium. Cole Sprouse and Drew Ray Tanner also star. Cierra “Shooter” Glaude directed the episode written by Evan Kyle. Original airdate 5/17/2023.

[adleryoung]

"Now then," I exclaimed, clapping my hands and turning toward the rest of the coven. "Regarding the lesson plan. Hm… This group will need some restructuring. Which of you is now the oldest?"

They all pointed at Rebecca.

"Wait a minute," Rebecca protested. "I know I'm the tallest, but isn't Chloe older?"

"Nope," the duck responded. "You're six weeks ahead of me."

"You're only tall because of those heels," the mouse (bear?) insisted.

"You mean you're all under eighteen?" I asked, with slight dismay.

"I'll be eighteen soon," Chloe pointed out. "But why does that matter?"

"It doesn't," I retorted. "As the eldest member of the coven, Rebecca is now in charge."

"I SEE!" Didelphis exclaimed angrily. "It all becomes crystal clear! This was your plan all along, to get me out of the way so you could put your sweetheart in charge! You young mels are all the same! I knew it as soon as I saw that outfit you gave her! How much venery did it take to compromise your principles?"

"I am willing to make you old again if you learn your lesson and manage to impress me," I declared, coolly ignoring the opossum's unsavory accusations. "However, if you want to continue being belligerent, you can just grow up the slow way."

Didelphis shut her mouth and glowered at me, but didn't say anything else.

The vixen cautiously raised her hand.

"Yes?" I prompted. "You have a question?"

"Uh, Lord Randall, sir, if any of us upset you, will you turn us all into children?"

"Probably not," I declared decisively. "This was a special case. It was meant to be an ironic punishment."

"Didn't you turn Oak Marten into a little girl as well?" Chloe asked.

"That was also a special case meant to be ironic," I explained.

"Um," Rebecca interjected. "I'm not sure that counts as being ironic. I remember reading that irony is an incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. In this case, 'poetic' would be the more accurate term."

"Okay fine," I sighed. "It was a POETIC punishment. And the situation with Oak still counts as ironic, since that transformation was meant to be a punishment and she ended up being happy about it."

"I don't think that's how -" the bear (mouse?) started to say.

"Let's get back on topic!" I interrupted before this could turn into a literary debate. "Rebecca will be in charge of the Coven for two reasons. Firstly, with Didelphis now a child, Rebecca is the oldest. Secondly, she is very gifted with understanding elfly things and has grasped the basics of her lessons far faster than I could have anticipated."

"That's not all she grasped, if you ask me," Didelphis sneered.

"Before I turned Oak into a little girl," I informed her. "I turned him .. er, her into a feral marten. You may not have heard that part of the story, but I assure you, elves do not lie. Just remember, being able to talk is a special privilege."

Didelphis paled and started licking her lollypop.

"Right then," I resumed. "I am a busy elf and I assume you all have lives to attend to. It would be difficult to gather everyone together for every lesson, and there isn't time to individually tutor all of you. Therefore, I will tutor Rebecca in the mystical arts, and what she masters, she will teach to you. That way it will be easier for you to gather in whatever setting is most convenient. Maybe a dark cellar huddled around a bubbling cauldron, a wheat field at midnight, a dank grotto, whatever strikes your fancy. I know this stone circle is remote and difficult to reach, so only on special occasions will you all have to convene here. Any questions?"

[otherpplnation]

935. Francine Prose

Francine Prose is the author of the memoir 1974: A Personal History, available from Harper.

Prose is the author of twenty-two works of fiction including the highly acclaimed The Vixen; Mister Monkey; the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her works of nonfiction include the highly praised Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer, which has become a classic. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director's Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

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[theliteraryvixen]

The Little Lies (The Great Hexpectations Series Book 1) by Marie F. Crow - My Review

Title: The Little Lies (The Great Hexpectations Series Book 1) Author: Marie F. Crow Release Date: February 22nd 2021 Genre: Fantasy, Witches, Paranormal Harper Buckland always knew she was different. The whole town has never let her forget it. What the town didn’t know, was one day they would come to her, in secret, to explore their deepest regrets. Harper has made a living from being a witch.…

[blackcinderella1]

Riverdale 7x08 “Hoop Dreams“

In order to keep Riverdale High’s basketball legacy alive, Frank (guest star Ryan Robbins) and Archie (KJ Apa) recruit a new player to the team – a quiet farm boy named Reggie Mantle (Charles Melton). Tabitha’s (Erinn Westbrook) return to school inspires Toni (Vanessa Morgan) to start a literary society for Riverdale’s Black students. Alice (Madchen Amick) forces Betty (Lili Reinhart) to join the River Vixens, and Kevin (Casey Cott) starts a new job at the Babylonium. Cole Sprouse and Drew Ray Tanner also star.

[ronaldparlato]

It's only a matter of time before the real feminism of Aeschylus and Shakespeare returns - time to forget trans-this and trans-that faux womanhood

[ignitiveifynovelcafe]

Congratulations Estelle Pettersen on your Literary Titan Book Award for Lessons on Seduction! Incredible Book! Delicious characters and an un-put-a-downable read!

Lessons On Seduction by author Estelle Pettersen is an absolute MUST read! It's STEAMY and unforgettable!

Fresh from a breakup, Sapphire Blake embarks on a new journey as a college student. Freeing herself from the expectations of others, innocent Sapphire experiments with her new casual lover, Vera Richland.

Handsome, smart and intimidating, Julian Richland finds himself enthralled with Saira Quinn, a powerful woman willing to pay top dollar for his time in the bedroom. To pay his debts and continue his lavish lifestyle, Julian discovers a world filled with sex, drugs, and lies.

Vera introduces Sapphire to her brother and sparks fly. Julian sees a sexy vixen who he wants despite her conservative background. He desires to school her in passion but he must keep his budding relationship secret.

Will his secrets and his desires put Sapphire in danger?

Purchase Here: http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Seduction.../dp/B08BKRPF63

[televisionpromos]

Riverdale 7x08 "Hoop Dreams" Preview - THE NEW KID IN TOWN — In order to keep Riverdale High’s basketball legacy alive, Frank and Archie recruit a new player to the team – a quiet farm boy named Reggie Mantle. Tabitha’s return to school inspires Toni to start a literary society for Riverdale’s Black students. Alice forces Betty to join the River Vixens, and Kevin starts a new job at the Babylonium. Cole Sprouse and Drew Ray Tanner also star. Cierra “Shooter” Glaude directed the episode written by Evan Kyle. Original airdate 5/17/2023.