I don’t do Tumblr. In fact, I’m having acute paranoia that maybe I’ve just spelled or capitalized something wrong IN “Tumblr,” here in the public forum of The Rumpus. But this week there were a couple of cool, provocative links floating around from that mysterious terrain:
1) Roxane Gay’s smart, blunt imperatives about how to be friends with other women. I love that she actually calls out the bullshit some women do wherein they brag about not being friends with other women, as though this makes them cooler, or sexier, or conveys honorary-cock status. This is a particular pet peeve of mine; it’s an insidious type of self-loathing that garners shitloads of societal reinforcement. Meanwhile, the whole list is good.
2) Addie Tsai, Lidia Yuknavitch and I have a strange, cool, intersecting history, all woven in with Ida Bauer, the young woman from Freud’s “Dora” case study. Right now, a lot of women are taking their tops off on FB for Lid’s “My Body Is Not Your Battleground” campaign, and here, Addie, equipped with blue bra, offers a thoughtful analysis on how social media impacts life and literature’s odd intersections, and book marketing as a way of generating political/historical energy.
Some related tidbits: Lid does a Q&A on “why Dora?” at PW. Having written (my debut novel) a Dora-inspired book myself, I’m currently reading a bunch of other texts inspired by “the hysterics,” including Lidia’s Dora: A Headcase, and Kate Zambreno’s much-anticipated Heroines, as well as the old school stuff like Cixous. (Expect some hysterical material soon, some Sunday.) And Roxane didn’t stop at helping the ladies get their friendships on–here, in “We Are Many. We Are Everywhere,” check out her extensive list of interesting writers of color.
On the opposite end of some kind of spectrum, the Daily Mail is still trying to hammer in the tired Harry Met Sally point that men and women can’t be friends. They interviewed a whole 88 people, looks like. Well then. That certainly puts this issue to rest once and for all. Geez.
Daily News talks to Brad Listi, who talks to Other People. Brad will be here talking to the Sunday Rumpus soon, too.
Jacob M. Appel wins the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Prize.
Lydia Netzer’s Shine Shine Shine rocks its NYTimes review. Lydia’s been doing some great community building among debut authors over at her FB group, Book Pregnant, a forum that’s been incredibly supportive and cathartic to its members. Congrats!
Shelf Unbound‘s Fifty Shades of Fiction represents a far more relevant color spectrum than Gray (hint: theirs is Dorian…)
Emily Rapp returns to The Rumpus today. Emily is on my required reading list for all humanity.
I’m at the beach this weekend before taking my daughters to sleepaway camp, and next week I’m basically being Stacy Bierlein’s groupie at her Northern Michigan book tour, so I’m taking the week off. See you all back here on August 19th! And man, this summer’s proving way, way too short, people. Hope you’re having a good one.
