Lez Liberty Lit: Language as Control

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Hey there and welcome to this week’s Lez Liberty Lit!

These three zines celebrate being Latinx.

Read these 50 queer history books for Pride month. and these. Plus, read the Bisexual Book Award winners. Read these non-binary sci-fi and fantasy novels.

At LitHub, Samantha Zighelboim discusses the poetics of fatness:

“Maybe someday I’ll arrive at a place of peace and acceptance and move past these traumas. But that is the dream—not the reality. Not yet.

This conflicted voice seems to be largely missing from the conversation around the politics of fat acceptance, and most especially, the poetics of fatness. So I started writing poems about the uglier realities of living in a fat body, choosing the sonnet form to subvert and reclaim a space traditionally reserved for more palatable themes (like romance). I squeezed into and out of the form, trying to make space for my body and the complexities of my experience in it. Using the sonnet was a radical choice intended to defy (and also adhere to) limitation and constraint. The freedom to push and redefine the parameters of form is one I have never been able to afford my own form—my body.”

In an interview at the Guardian, Roxane Gay discusses language as control, bodies, incels, what she’s reading and more.

Why are middle-aged women invisible on book covers?

The Nobel prize for literature could be suspected for over a year due to sexual misconduct.

Owning physical books just feels different from owning ebooks:

“The study found that research participants “described being more emotionally attached to physical books, and said they use physical books to establish a sense of self and belonging,” according to the University of Arizona. Book lovers have long lamented the loss of “book smell” that accompanies the use of e-books, and participants also touched on other important aspects of book ownership: the use of bookshelves to curate a persona and the ability to augment the pages of a book with marginal notes, in particular.”

Here’s what Samantha Irby is reading right now.

It’s stupid that caring about fashion is considered unserious.

Languages are dying.

Read all these books this summer. Read these 15 feminist books in June. Read the 2018 Best Translated Book Award winners. Read these books about the women Lumberjanes references. Read these books about being exiled. Read these books about long-distance road trips.

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Ryan Yates

Ryan Yates was the NSFW Editor (2013–2018) and Literary Editor for Autostraddle.com, with bylines in Nylon, Refinery29, The Toast, Bitch, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, and elsewhere. They live in Los Angeles and also on twitter and instagram.

Ryan has written 1142 articles for us.

3 Comments

  1. what i dislike about ebooks is not being able to foist them on loved ones like i do paper books. but i do love them for lesbian romance novels. they’re cheap, i don’t have to look at the hideous covers, and they weigh less than paper books so it’s easier to read them when i’m sleepy. the only downside is that i can’t throw them across the room when they inevitably disappoint me.

    • I’ve been attempting to purchase as many books as I can directly from the (smaller) publishers, as many of them don’t have DRM, and more of the money actually goes to the publisher and not to a middle-company like Amazon. Depending on an eBook’s specific limitations in its license, it may be possible to lend a DRM-free one after reading.

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