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sundry news

November 2nd, 2012

1. My family gets a nod in a Publisher’s Weekly article about The Most Dysfunctional Families in Literature. Also ranking: The Bennets, of Pride and Prejudice!

2. Here’s the kickstarter page for a cool movie about the current state of the LGBT community.

3. Here are some new books to check out. Urvashi Vaid’s Irresistible Revolution.

My childhood friend Ken Foster’s book about pit bulls.

And Dylan Edwards’ comic book

4. Out Magazine has put me on their annual Out100 list. At the photo shoot they gave me an itty bitty boy’s suit which I could only fit into when they ripped open the waistband of the pants. Fortunately they used a close-up shot. For the set, they printed out all these comics from my website. A bunch of them were fanfic strips, though, like this one, that others submitted to this blog years ago.

Rich tribute

November 1st, 2012

The Adrienne Rich tribute last Sunday was really great. Here are some of the people–that’s Joanie Seager, of the New Words Remnants Collective (members of the erstwhile Cambridge women’s bookstore, New Words, who came together to make this event happen), hugging Evelynn Hammonds, who was one of the readers (and also Dean of Harvard College, and also someone who worked at New Words). That’s poet Robin Becker in the red-orange pants. And me, talking to Adrienne Rich’s son, Pablo Conrad. He also spoke briefly, which was really moving. Gilda Bruckner is next to him, and Laura Zimmerman, both of New Words. Poet Kate Rushin and activist/academic Cynthia Enloe are out of the frame on the left–they were two of the other readers.

Adrienne Rich celebration & tribute in Cambridge Oct. 28

September 21st, 2012

I’m taking part in this event that the women who used to run New Words Bookstore have organized.

Dear friends,

The death of Adrienne Rich a few months ago struck so many of us as the passing of a literary icon and also of a pivotal figure in forging the powerful fusion of literature and politics out of which so much feminist energy flowed. For multiple communities, Adrienne was a towering figure. This inspired some of us from New Words Bookstore to imagine that there should be a feminist tribute to Adrienne. So, we’ve reconstituted ourselves as the ‘New Words Remnants Collective’ and we’ve planned an Adrienne Rich tribute event. We hope you will join us there, and please help us spread the word:

“READING AND REMEMBERING ADRIENNE RICH: A CELEBRATION AND TRIBUTE”

with: ALISON BECHDEL, ROBIN BECKER, CYNTHIA ENLOE, EVELYNN HAMMONDS, & KATE RUSHIN

Coordinated by the New Words Remnants Collective;
Co-sponsored with Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) and the Graduate Consortium of Women’s Studies

SUNDAY OCT 28 4pm
Stata Center, MIT

(32 Vassar St; nearest subway Kendall/MIT; directions: http://whereis.mit.edu/)
open seating, free, no reserved seats, no tickets

doors open 3:30; wheelchair accessible

adriennerichevent@yahoo.com

Please come! Please spread the word.

Warmly,
Gilda, Joni, and Laura

out of print

September 14th, 2012

Speaking of aging, there’s a great post up on Autostraddle about defunct lesbian publications. Really old-time ones like Vice Versa and The Ladder, but also The Furies, Dyke Magazine, Azalea, and Hot Wire. There are links to online archives of some of them!

turning 50

September 4th, 2012

I’m about to turn 52, but 2 years ago this guy Rob Trucks interviewed me for a book he was writing of interviews with people turning 50. The one he did with me just got published on Jezebel. He caught me in the middle of my menopausal insanity phase, which I’m happy to say has more or less passed.

the doubtful seal?

August 31st, 2012

Hol and I are on Cape Cod. On our way we stopped in at the Edward Gorey Museum.

Here I am with the sculpture of The Doubtful Guest.

A few days after this we trekked with friends out to see the seals who congregate on a quiet sandbar. There were hundreds of them lolling about in the sun.

A naturalist there explained that most of them were gray seals, and a few were harbor seals. The harbor seals are smaller and cuter, with “cocker spaniel faces,” while the gray seals can be distinguished by their Roman nose, or “horse face.” (photo below is not mine, I grabbed it from google image search.)

Holly was struck by the resemblance to The Doubtful Guest. And now we wonder if the seals were perhaps Gorey’s inspiration for that compelling character. He wrote TDG in 1957. I don’t know when he started coming to the Cape, or if he ever ventured out to look at seals. But it’s an interesting hypothesis.

On re-runs

August 15th, 2012

How melancholy I would feel as a child when I sat down to watch The Brady Bunch or The Partridge Family, only to discover that the episode was a re-run. All hope and optimism drained out of me. Life suddenly seemed a stale, if not futile, proposition.

Of course I would watch the re-run anyway, and soon get caught up in the story all over again.

Yesterday I received the latest issue of Lesbian Connection in the mail. For some time now they have been reprinting old episodes of Dykes To Watch Out For. I have mixed feelings about this. I’m touched that they think the cartoons are still interesting. But mostly I feel mortified by these outdated and irrelevant strips seeing the light of day.

The episode in the latest issue is from 1989. It’s about Sparrow’s self-righteous friend Milkweed coming off the lesbian farm for a visit.

But just as I was rolling my eyes about this, Hol started reading me a letter on the preceding page of LC—a screed about the “animal industrial complex” by someone who lives on a queer vegan animal sanctuary in Southern Vermont.

Milkweed lives! I feel a flicker of hope.

highsmithery

July 23rd, 2012

This is my re-creation of the cover of Patricia Highsmith’s pseudonymous lesbian novel which came out in paperback in 1952 or 1953. (I drew this as one of my top ten books for the Unpacking My Library project that I blogged about two years ago.)

W.W. Norton has just re-issued the works of Highsmith as e-books. Check out their great website. You can “choose your Highsmith” by answering a branching list of funny questions about what exactly you’re in the mood to read. And you can see a 3 minute promotional video with people like Joanne Schenkar and Terry Castle and me (Alas,no! I did not get to meet the infamous Castle or the mysterious Schenkar…we were all interviewed separately.) talking about Highsmith’s work.

Patricia Highsmith – EBooks Now Available from WW Norton on Vimeo.

Comic-Con Ho

July 9th, 2012

Hmmm. The phrase “westward ho” is kind of ruined forever…but I am heading westward this week to the San Diego Comic-Con. And although I am not exactly being paid for my favors, I am getting free travel, a hotel room, and a $50/day meal stipend. I’m not sure if that constitutes prostitution on my part or not.

I’ll be doing a bunch of things at Comic-Con, including a signing at the Prism booth on Thursday 7/12 from 4:30 to 6. I’ll also be at the 25th anniversary of the Gays in Comics panel. And I’ll be on the “No Straight Lines” panel with Justin Hall who just edited the massive anthology No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics for Fantagraphics.

Here is Dr. Winnicott a few weeks ago, soon after my return from Chicago, looking imploringly at me from my suitcase.

urvashi’s new book!

June 18th, 2012

Irresistible Revolution: Confronting race, class and the assumptions of LGBT politics is coming out from Magnus Press in July! Here’s the synopsis:

From one of the nation’s best-known social justice leaders and community activists comes a strategic and informed argument about the pitfalls of limited political vision, and the benefits of an agenda that encompasses, yet moves beyond, equality.

Yeah!

Magnus is a small, independent press. Pre-orders help a lot in terms of the number of books each vendor orders from the publisher. Through these links you can order it from Women and Children First, Powells.com, Amazon.com, or Barnes and Noble.