Jeanette Winterson has the best-named memoir: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She spoke about the story behind the title during her reading at McNally Jackson bookstore in NYC:

When Jeanette W. was fifteen, she fell in love with another girl and couldn’t hide it. Her mother, referred to as “Mrs. Winterson,” staged an exorcism (no joke). Of exorcisms, Jeanette W. says, “You go in feeling strong, and you leave feeling the devil is inside you.”

Mrs. Winterson issued an ultimatum: “Give up the girl or leave home.” As Jeanette W. packed her bags, Mrs. Winterson asked, “Why are you doing this?” Jeanette W. said, “To be happy.” Mrs. Winterson then asked, “Why be happy when you could be normal?” …more

The last few months have been like a post-apocalyptic dystopian young adult novel re: women’s health.

First there was Nancy Pelosi’s GOP Oversight hearing photo showing five men testifying on women’s health. ”What qualifies me to be an expert on women’s reproductive health? I’m a 59-year-old man.”

Then Sandra Fluke testified, arguing in favor of requiring private insurance plans to cover contraception coverage. For this, Rush Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” who is “having so much sex she can’t afford contraception” and is someone who “wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex” and then “post the videos online so we can all watch.” Hey, Rush, watch this. …more

“We’re secretaries fully versed in Derrida, receptionists who have read Proust in French. This is a land of girls. There are always at least ten of ‘us’ for every one of ‘him.’”  –Meghan Daum, “Publishing and Other Near-Death Experiences”

Author Sara Levine read a few chapters from her novel Treasure Island!!! (a Rumpus Book Club selection) at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn and said wonderfully interesting things during the Q & A with the audience:

On male plots v. female plots: …more

Recently, I started taking improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York (founded by the high priestess of funny, Amy Poehler). During each class exercise, I’d think, “This would help my writing.” I compiled a list of writing lessons I learned from Improv 101: …more

We ♥ Mike Doughty

Are you trying to write today but feeling distracted/unmotivated/lonely? If so, perfect. We’re taking “Write Like a Motherfucker,” Dear Sugar’s #48 column one step beyond…

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Even though I’m Jewish, I never went to summer camp. …more

Susie Bright, sex-positive feminist, writer, revolutionary, and my first tongue-kiss with a woman recently released her memoir Big Sex Little Death.

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The AFI Directing Workshop for Women has been dedicated to developing the talent of the next generation of film and TV female directors since 1974. Amy French, one of last year’s eight AFI DWW fellows, generated some buzz with her feature from last year, El Súperstar, and continues to bring it with Hold for Laughs, premiering Thursday, June 16th (TONIGHT!) at 7pm at the AFI Mark Goodson Theater in L.A. Hold for Laughs is a story about an awkward 13-year-old Catholic schoolgirl who moonlights as a stand-up comic (produced by Lauren Schnipper). Maybe the sequel will be about a 13-year-old stand-up comic who moonlights as a Catholic schoolgirl.

Read Amy French’s article about her experience in the AFI DWW program, a forum that brings diligent creative women together.

Upon finishing Infinite Jest (doing so is like a sacrament, which I say even though I’m Jewish), Chris Ayers created a shining visual memorial/appendage to Infinite Jest. The website Poor Yorick Entertainment is “a visual exploration of the filmography of James O. Incandenza and the world of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.”

About the site: “‘Poor Yorick Entertainment’ is the name of the fictional independent film company started by James O. Incandenza in David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest. . . . This project is an attempt to bring some kind of visual life to the fictional filmmaker’s body of work.” …more

Some advice for writers from our own Elissa Bassist:

[Some of this is stolen. But I won’t tell you what because I want to impress you.] …more

“It’s wonderful to experience the ongoing corruption and evolution of the English language.”

Elissa Bassist shares her personal notes after having a conversation with Jennifer Egan: …more

The Rumpus Women, Vol. I contributors have been on tour. We’ve read in bookstores, bars, and family rooms in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Denver. The readings have been awe-inspiring: smart, funny, charming, sad, honest, brave.

In case you couldn’t make a reading or live in Iowa, Rumpus Women will be on Firedoglake Book Salon, an online news site that hosts author discussions every Saturday and Sunday. …more

Jenny Hagel, the filmmaker/comdienne who made the Feminist Rapper webseries (see below), released a new short comedy film online this week.

“Tech support” is about a woman who falls in love with the girl on the other end of a long tech support phone call–and what happens when she drops that call. …more

Dearest Readers, Contributors, Hopeful Contributors, and Men,

The Funny Women column is going away to the Sugar Shack until 2011.

While you are welcome and encouraged to send submissions to funnywomen AT therumpus.net, please note I’m embarrassingly behind on reading your work and editing upcoming pieces (I have adjusted the submission guidelines to reflect this). I’ll be dedicating the next few weeks to reading every word you’ve sent me. Look forward to a consistently published and polished column next year.

In the meantime: have the happiest and most tolerable of holidays; if home is hard, write about it (when you write about your family, it becomes “good material” rather than “a bad life”); and finally, if someone tells me one more time “that’s what she said,” I am just going to snap.

Fondly,
Elissa
Editor of Funny Women

“Feeling down? Make a Self-Esteem Shell Collage! Write a poem on a piece of paper about you and the ocean and about how you feel about the ocean and why you are special and of course the ocean and then surround the poem with whatever shells you collected that day so you will always remember it. …more

At the end of The Social Network, a new indie flick that no one has ever heard of, I turned to my friend, and out of every intelligent comment I could have made, I said, “There was so much testosterone in the movie that I feel fucked six ways sideways.” …more

Notes I took on what Lorrie Moore said while in conversation with Deborah Treisman, The New Yorker‘s fiction editor, that I felt selfish keeping to myself:

How to become a writer:
-You can’t carve solitude out of loneliness–you need people to get away from them. …more

In “VIDA Counts The Rumpus” two female writers from VIDA: Women in Literary Arts “crunch the numbers and let us know how The Rumpus is doing in the gender disparity department.” The verdict: we’re kinda sexist, but not as sexist as most places; that’s what the numbers say at least.

But what do the people–the women, us motherfuckers–behind the numbers say? I said the following in the comments section of “VIDA Counts The Rumpus,” and I repost it now as a suggested addendum to the piece. …more

(via Chicken John)

“I really believe that most writers in America have taken on this idea that we’re never going to get paid–and so we accept so little for what we do, when what we do is so valuable. And it’s wanted.” –Ali Liebegott

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At first, I loved Dan from a distance. Judging on a bell-curve, I was attractive for my high school debate team, but otherwise, I was far from his type of girl. And yet, that one day on the quad, he saw me, sat next to me, picked me. Few get to date that one person they deify, the person they hold above all others. …more

Like most women, I am gay for Sarah Haskins. Unlike most women, I got to interview her.

Here are some things you should know about Sarah to get the most out of our interview: …more

“I love you” is a cliché.

I wonder if I’ll use this cliché again.

The lights are out and I’m typing on my elbows and it hurts so I must stop.

I don’t stop. I clutch my t-shirt and try to get my breathing under control but am unable to do so and worry about passing out and suffocating, alone, for no reason other than Lorrie Moore. …more