Hi and welcome to this week’s Lez Liberty Lit!
“What does it look like to not lose as an artist? Especially when “creativity under capitalism is not creative at all because it only produces more of the same,” as Oli Mould puts it in Against Creativity[?]” At the Creative Independent, Courtney Cassidy shares a soft manifesto on values-driven art making. If you haven’t read Against Creativity, do so now.
Support Black trans women visual artists.
At Electric Literature, Sarah Cavar writes about transmedicalist narratives and how the past of trans literature does not have to determine the future:
“My initial urge to wholly disclaim transmedicalist narratives is counterproductive if I want to genuinely transform what “trans” can be. Our power, after all, lies in our ability to be many-at-once, to harness and transform language in ways previously unimagined.
Far from policing the gates of trans-storytelling, we have the ability to critically, honestly read unsavory parts of our history, while at the same time storming the gates of gender-legitimacy, ripping the doors to the house of trans off their hinges. This does not require an oversimplification of “trans,” a reduction of a complex array of lives and values, to a shared “not-cisness.” Instead, we can take this semantic connection to people like Martino [from 1977’s Emergence], and use that connection to untell the stories that threaten to speak for us all and restrict our self-determination.”
Black Garnet Books is the first Black-owned bookstore in the Twin Cities.
How’s your pandemic diary going?
Everything in publishing is up for grabs.
Here’s how to donate books to incarcerated children.
How do you write better sex?
Go play with clay.
“If we want to uproot the current racist system, it’s mandatory that we understand how racism was constructed. Stamped does just that,” writes Darryl Robertson in a review of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.
“Big Scrabble’s decision to eliminate offensive words has infuriated players like never before..”
“Insane after coronavirus?,” journals Partricia Lockwood.
Read these books in the second half of 2020. Read these 11 novels starring essential workers. Read these stories of disability. Read these books about housing inequality in America. These books are actually cake.
The scrabble article was a really interesting read, and I really appreciated the thoughtful discussion of transmedicalism in trans history. I have lately been realising how many harmful transphobic messages I have internalised and pieces like that article and the Disclosure documentary are helping me uncover/process my gender feelings