Pure Poetry #2: Eileen Myles
“Every time I read a new Eileen Myles book, I ended up carrying it on me for weeks. I think I’m going to end up with a good collection. I would never lose it.”
Pure Poetry Week Starts Now! With Pure Poetry Post #1: Def Jam
We have declared this week Autostraddle Pure Poetry Week, when we are going to talk about poets we like all the time! First up is T.S. Eliot. Just kidding it’s Def Jam.
Eileen Myles on Being Female
“Speaking frankly as a lesbian I have to say that the salient fact about the danger zone I call home is the persistent experience of witnessing the quick revulsion of people who believe that because I love women I am a bottom feeder. I am desperately running towards what anyone in their right mind would be running away from. Which is femaleness, which is failure.”
Autostraddle Read A F*cking Book Club #2 – Let’s Read The IHOP Papers!
“Liebegott’s debut novel is a coming-of-age coming-out in the tradition of Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, but here, the portrait of an artist as punk waitress is more a celebration of sexuality than humanity. Twenty-year-old Francesca is a recovering drunk who finds comfort in cutting herself and harbors fantasies of her beautiful AA sponsor, Maria; her former philosophy teacher, Irene; and a soap opera heroine.”
Dear Harry Potter, We Are Lesbians And We Love You
Maybe you think it’s stupid because it’s just a book and Harry Potter doesn’t exist. Well, he does for me. And I’m a better person because of it.
Portia de Rossi on Oprah: Read a F*cking (Lesbian) Book, Perhaps Unbearable Lightness
Portia de Rossi walks Oprah through the eating disorders she developed as a result of being a teen model and the stress of hiding her sexuality as she climbed the Hollywood ladder. Her story is universal, whether you are gay or have ever been on a diet.
Rachel’s Team Pick: Write Like A Motherf*cker
If you had a two-sided chalkboard in your living room I’d write humility on one side and surrender on the other for you.
Autostraddle Book Club Reads Inferno: It’s All Happening on November 19th
In perhaps the most unsurprising move of 2010, we have chosen Eileen Myles’ ‘Inferno’ as our first official book club pick. Get excited!
I’m With You In Rockland As Long As You’re Seeing HOWL There
In which Rachel discusses why she needs to see HOWL right now. “When I was seventeen I went to San Francisco to read poetry. Or maybe I went because I’d already read poetry.”
Autostraddle Read A F*cking Book Club
You look really pretty and smart today, and I wanna read a book with you. Then we can talk about it after, and I’ll tell you how soft and shiny your hair is. Does that sound good? I think so too.
Riese’s Team Pick: Medium-Sized Interviews With Not-So-Hideous Men & Women
Bret Easton Ellis, Ira Glass, Tao Lin and Lydia Davis would like to have a word with you.
Riese’s Team Pick: ‘Baby-Sitters Club’ by Bret Easton Ellis
god i need some tylenol pm right now
Riese’s Team Pick: And The Heart Says Whatever
NY Mag: Who do you think will read your book? Emily Gould: Twenty-three year old girls who have Tumblr Accounts. I’m going to write something about Emily Gould’s And the Heart Says Whatever this week or yesterday. By repeatedly pressuring you to purchase it, I’m upping the chances that you’ll want to talk to me […]
Riese’s Team Pick: Emily Gould & Megan Daum
I’ve been reading everything Megan Daum‘s written since 1998 (when I first discovered her via New Yorker essay) & especially loved her collection My Misspent Youth. So imagine my delight to see that Curtis Sittenfeld (author of Prep another favorite book) interviewed Megan in New York Magazine along with Emily Gould, who’s new book And […]
Riese’s Team Pick: New Poem from Eileen Myles
Hi Eileen Myles is my favorite poet who also happens to be queer. The Awl has a new poem from her. It’s called “Smile.”
J.D. Salinger, 91, Dies: All Eyes On the Literary Recluse Who Despised Our Eyes
J.D. Salinger, author of “Catcher in the Rye” and legendary recluse, dies of natural causes at the age of 91. Will death kill his well-cultivated privacy? How do we honor our literary idols using the same media machine employed to vaporize/idolize our dead celebrities & rock stars? Will we get to read all his unpublished books now? Why do some people feel entitled to that, or anything, from anyone who has passed away, ever?
Riese’s Team Pick: Mary Gaitskill on Lady Gaga
I said once on twitter that I wanted to read Mary Gaitskill describe Lady Gaga, and then it turned out that such a thing had in fact already happened. !. Mary Gaitskill on Lady Gaga at ryeberg curated video: “This video is to me a picture of hell. It is so normal, yet so terrible.”
Riese’s Team Pick: The Decade in Poetry
2000-2009: The Decade in Poetry at the Poetry Foundation. There’s some Eileen Myles in there. (I love her) “The women poets I know are beginning to understand feminism as a sly term that can hold a lot. All that it needs…”
Sister Spit’s New Generation of Queer Poets & Rebels: The Autostraddle Interview
In 1997, Michelle Tea and Sini Anderson started Sister Spit – a spoken word tour full of the best queer writers and poets around. Twelve years later, Sister Spit: The Next Generation is taking over the world/my heart. On October 5, the tour came to Phoenix and I interviewed them for you, which is actually a big deal because it was the first face-to-face interview I’ve ever done and I was scared, y’all.