- Kill Your Rituals, Not Your Darlings Harry Connolly stops by Kate Elliott’s blog and talks about the evolution of his writing process. This really resonated for me because I will come up with a million reasons why I can’t write and 90% of the time they’re bullshit reasons.
- My happiness depends on you: giving voice to the unsung women of pop This is a neat project and looks at these songs from a perspective I hadn’t necessarily considered before.
- Newsflash: the Firefly guys were villains Say it ain’t so!
- Vanishing Act Whoa–Barbara Newhall Follett published her first book when she was 12 (to great acclaim) and then disappeared forever when she was 26 and her husband barely even bothered to look for her? Wow. I’m going to pretend she ran off to a feminist commune and lived the rest of her days in happiness (although I am 99% sure that her husband killed her as that’s the most likely answer here).
- Gender and the Hugo Awards This is a really good analysis by Aaron Pound. I think an analysis of race and the Hugo Awards would also be illuminating.
- Intersectional is more than a three-letter country Wow, yeah. The way things are here in the US is definitely not the way they are in the rest of the world. And it is helpful to remember that.
- How “Clean” Was Sold to America I feel like this article is interesting but sort of falls apart at the end–I’d have liked more a through line from the advertising of the past up until now with, perhaps, more of an emphasis on how women’s bodies, in particular, are pathologized. I am maybe asking too much from Gizmodo.
- This guy took my spot…so I put the snow back. SEEMS LEGIT.
- Survivors of 1980s AIDS crisis reveal what happened to them …yeah. This is a part of our history which is slowly being forgotten. It shouldn’t be.
- ‘Female Husbands’ In The 19th Century This is an excellent article. One thing I like about it is that it allows for a variety of identity and cautions the reader to not make assumptions.
- When Sex Won’t Work Moving first person account of dealing with vaginismus.
- Ronni Dolorosa on Cults and Abuse Dynamics in Fandom Ronni says a lot of really important things here and emphasized the necessity of remembering our history.
- I’m Brianna Wu, And I’m Risking My Life Standing Up To Gamergate “My capacity to feel fear has worn out, as if it’s a muscle that can do no more.”
- Hands Kari Sperring writes about the erasure of older women–except when their labor is needed.
- I wrote about Wadhwa and you’ll never guess what happened next! Amelia Greenhall has been on fire lately. I’m so glad she’s speaking.
And wow, this is..well, just watch it. I am not a huge fan of the song but this is gorgeous.
Sergei Polunin, “Take Me to Church” by Hozier, Directed by David LaChapelle from David LaChapelle Studio on Vimeo.
Female husbands: Alas, I couldn’t get my book club to agree to any of the following fictionalized biographies (although one of the other members had already read the Lobdell book), some of which have female husbands and near misses:
* A Call to Arms: The Civil War Adventures of Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias Private Frank Thompson, by P.F. Nagle. How much is truth and how much fiction is difficult to say, as the historical Emma may have stretched the truth herself in the memoirs she wrote after the Civil War. In this re-telling, she ran away from home and made her living as a man before the Civil War, then joined the Union Army, was asked to serve as a (male) nurse for 6 months, then was asked to be a courier, and then a spy. So the story covers a lot of ground, and allows the reader to experience several parts of the war, but a few parts of her story seemed a bit unlikely. One distinctive part of this book is how Emma takes her faith very seriously, questioning herself and others’ actions at times and trying for high standards, though not always succeeding. Her yearning to connect to others, even in disguise, is very human. The flashback/flash-forward chapter structure will annoy some but possibly engage others, and the same is true of her romantic choices.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611383862/
* Revolutionary, by Alex Myers. Apprentice weaver Deborah Sampson disguises herself and enlists in the Continental Army. She does well but is wounded and then things get really tricky when she’s assigned to watch over another soldier’s recuperation. Good but sad in parts. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1451663323/
* The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell, by William Klaber. Woman leaves her baby and dresses as man during frontier times to earn her wages. Legal battles, labor issues, treatment of mentally ill. Very interesting in parts and despairing in others.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1608325628/
* I Shall Be Near To You, by Erin Lindsay McCabe. Rosetta Wakefield follows her husband when he enlists for the Civil War. His enlistment buddies are suspicious; some help and some are trouble.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0804137722/
I read Terry Pratchett’s *Monstrous Regiment* after my unexplained
dive into those novels/biographies, for a bit of comic relief. 🙂