For many, it’s a time of uncertainty and isolation. But in poet Tess Taylor’s humble opinion, turning to verse can provide solace. Her recent book of poems is “Rift Zone,” and the following essay is part of our arts and culture series, “CANVAS.”
Watch here!
Check out the Red Hen Press Poetry Special on Mercurius. Featuring Joshua Rivkin, Marie Tozier, Jim Peterson, and Susan Ludvigson!
DEBORAH A. LOTT is the author of the newly released Don’t Go Crazy Without Me: A Tragicomic Memoir. Lott writes of growing up in a family of leftist Jews, surrounded by Republican gentiles in 1950s and ’60s La Crescenta, a then-isolated suburb of Los Angeles. The family is dominated by Lott’s “lovably neurotic” father, “Ira,” who, among his eccentricities, likes to dress up as Little Lord Fauntleroy, and, for Purim, in drag. He also serves as the local Jewish community’s lay rabbi. When his mother dies, Ira plunges into psychosis, and nearly takes his impressionable daughter into madness with him. The contagiousness of irrationality, a subject much on our minds these days, is one of the notable themes of the book.
National Book Award–winning poet and memoirist Mark Doty called it “astonishingly vivid … funny, horrifying, and heartbreaking — and often surprisingly, all three at once. … As the best memoirs do, Don’t Go Crazy Without Me makes this writer’s story belong to all of us.” Acclaimed memoirist Abigail Thomas deemed it “brilliantly written with grace, generosity, and a highly refined sense of the absurd.” In a review in The Adroit Journal, Jody Keisner wrote, “Don’t Go Crazy Without Me truly showcases the memoir as an art form.”
Welcome to Autostraddle’s 2021 Black History Month essay series. In their recent stirring multi-media anthology Black Futures, Black queer creators Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew ask, “What does it mean to be Black and alive?” And so, this Black History Month, Autostraddle is reaching past, and pushing forward, to explore realities beyond (the pain of) what we have inherited.
Read the full piece here!
In which I chat about lots of new books. Grab a cup of tea and join me!
Watch the full video here!
In a column for The Cut titled “How Am I?” Amil Niazi paints a grim picture of pandemic working motherhood. In the middle of her realistic itinerary piece about care of two young children while balancing deadlines, she writes that a gaping hole opens up in her kitchen floor which is a portal to hell. “Exactly,” one commenter succinctly replies. Motherhood is monstrous this year—an impossible debit when emotions and workloads are already maxed out. The only word that comes to mind is horrific, and the literature that helps me come to grips with this time period weaves in elements of horror.
Motherhood has always suggested emotional disruption in books. The first time I read The Yellow Wallpaper in college, I thought, “impossible.” The fact that I would become dissociated from my body and reality because of the birth of a child felt sexist and ridiculous. Modern feminism wouldn’t allow women to become victims of PPD and despair. The second time I read it, after the birth of my first child, I thought, “too possible.”
The woman on the cover of Lara Ehrlich’s debut short story collection appears to be almost airlifted from the 1950s—she could be an actor from The Donna Reed Show or perhaps a model for LOOK magazine, all aproned and ironed and fingernail perfect. Though unlike the manicured artifice of the “perfect housewife,” this woman’s body has a wildness, a hunger, a howl stirring beneath, and we are witness to its unveiling as a snarling wolf bares its teeth and tears a space for itself across the face of the woman. This dramatic and unforgettable cover is a perfect teaser for the question explored in the following pages: what happens when the wolf within woman breaks through the surface and emerges?
The fifteen stories within Animal Wife correspond with this duality of the woman and the wolf, the exterior and the interior, the domestic and the wild, the performative and primal natures that contribute to the lives of Lara Ehrlich’s characters as they seek liberation from the societal expectations and self-doubts that attempt to control and dominate them.
What’s the next step after you finally “make it”? While it’s easy to scoff at the problems of people who are financially set, it’s not uncommon to lose a sense of purpose once you jump out of the rat race. Bigger questions start to come up: what’s your real purpose in life? What type of legacy are you leaving behind? How will your personal relationships be impacted by your new-found financial status? What type of impact do you want to make on the world? Shining a new light on these ideas that often don’t receive enough attention is Jennifer Risher, author of We Need To Talk: A Memoir About Wealth. We’ll talk to her today!
Many of Kinsolving’s poems relate to science. Her first book focused on horticulture and floral metaphor. The poems in another book examined aphasia and dementia’s linguistic enigma. Her most recent book, Peripheral Vision, features a series of poems regarding prosthetic eyes, the history of glass eyes, and the science of acrylic eyes, as well as the perspectives of some people who wear them.
Poetry goes well beyond propaganda or platitudes, Kinsolving points out. “Through inspiring and surprising language, poetry reveals truth, emotion, and mystery. Poetry can protest injustice. Poetry can give voice to life’s profound events: love or grief. Poetry can also express the elusive moments of human existence.”
This year welcomes a slate of Black authors who will publish young adult fiction ranging in subject matter, but sharing one common goal: to expand what it means to see Black teen girls as full, whole characters.
Read the full piece here!
Self-care has never been more important than it is right now, and that’s especially true for Black women, who have had to juggle work, family, personal lives, and more amid ongoing racial trauma while also living in a pandemic. According to women’s rights organization LeanIn.org, Black women have faced an even greater burden and were more susceptible to burnout since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed, which is why figuring out what Black joy means to us has also never been more important.
Read the full piece here!
Tobi Harper is Deputy Director of Red Hen Press, Founder and Editor of Quill (a queer publishing series), Publisher of The Los Angeles Review, and Instructor for the UCLA Extension Publishing and Editing program. As a queer speaker, event curator, literary warrior, tech wiz, and jello wrestler, Tobi works to enjoy the diversity of experiences that life has to offer.
Dave Farrow is the two-time Guinness Record holder for greatest memory. He has been a featured guest expert on over 2000 interviews in the media including, The Today Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, Steve Harvey, Discovery Channel and many others. To earn the world record, Farrow recalled the exact order of 59 decks of shuffled playing cards using ‘The Farrow Memory Method’. This method was originally invented to combat Farrow’s dyslexia and ADHD and is now a unique memory system backed by a double blind neuroscience study at McGill University.
Listen to the podcast here!
Before the pandemic hit, playwright Matthew-Lee Erlbach was working on a play about American labor movements between 1890 and 1920 — an era that many associate with seamstresses jumping out of a burning factory during the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Upton Sinclair’s exposés of foul meat factory buildings or Mother Jones’ tireless organizing on behalf of mine workers.
Read the full piece here!
My mom says every mother needs a daughter. It’s not that she doesn’t love and appreciate her two sons. My middle brother knows best how to comfort her in times of grief. My younger brother is the child she buddies around with, the precious youngest by quite a few years. But I—her only daughter and her oldest child—share something fundamental with her: I go through life as a woman.
Read the full article here!
Each year, the editors of The Believer present awards to the works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry they find to be the best written and most underappreciated. For the first time ever, we’re honoring comics and graphic work in a distinct Graphic Narrative category. Below are the longlists of nominees for each category. The short lists and winners will be announced online in the spring.
Read the list here!
