- Sadaf Ahsan, “Forget the MFA – becoming a YouTube star is the new fast track to a book deal” (National Post)
- Catie Disabato, “Why It’s Hard To Talk About My Bisexuality” (Buzzfeed)
- Roxane Gay, “The Charge to Be Fair: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay in Conversation” (Barnes & Noble Review)
- Josh Giesbrecht, “How The Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive” (The Atlantic)
- Chris Guillebeau, “Let the Wave Crash Over You: A Letter for My Brother” (The Art of Non-Conformity)
- Kate McCahill, “You’ll Never Walk Alone: On Traveling the World with Books” (The Millions)
- Jeanne McCulloch & Mona Simpson, “Alice Munro, The Art of Fiction No. 137” (The Paris Review)
- Catherine Nichols, “Homme de Plume: What I Learned Sending My Novel Out Under a Male Name” (Jezebel)
- Jevon Phillips, “Felicia Day lets the world know that ‘You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)’” (The LA Times)
- Joshua Rothman, “Seeing and Hearing for the First Time, on YouTube” (The New Yorker)
- John Stanton, “The Troubled Resurrection Of Black America’s Historic Beach Haven” (Buzzfeed)
- Megan Tifft, “The Agony of Community” (The Atlantic)
Author Archives: Theryn
I fear … the giving up of this excitement … that makes you write
Of course it wouldn’t matter if you did give up writing. It’s not the giving up of the writing that I fear. It’s the giving up of this excitement or whatever it is that you feel that makes you write. This is what I wonder: what do most people do once the necessity of working all the time is removed? Even the retired people who take courses and have hobbies are looking for something to fill this void, and I feel such horror of being like that and having that kind of life. The only thing that I’ve ever had to fill my life has been writing.
Some things I read this month
- Jesse Browner, “Quote Unquote” (The Paris Review)
- Erin Coulehan, “Leading the double Instagram life: When the secret “fake” account looks infinitely more real” (Salon)
- Briallen Hopper, “On Spinsters” (Los Angeles Review of Books)
- Julie Lythcott-Haims, “Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out” (Slate)
- Brett Martin, “How This Chef Saved My Life” (GQ)
- Patt Morrison,”Privilege makes them do it — what a study of Internet trolls reveals” (The LA Times)
- George Plimpton & Frank H. Crowther, “E. B. White, The Art of the Essay No. 1” (The Paris Review)
- Maria Popova, “Georgia O’Keeffe on Art, Life, and Setting Priorities” (Brainpickings)
- Zadie Smith, “What It Means to Be Addicted to Reading” (Oprah’s Book Club)
- Katy Waldman, “The Incredible Shrinking Zeitgeist: How Did This Great Word Lose Its Meaning?” (Slate)
- Gary Younge, “Farewell to America” (The Guardian)
delay is instinctive
Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer—he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? of strength? of courage?) that will carry him along. I have no warm-up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink. I am apt to let something simmer for a while in my mind before trying to put it into words. I walk around, straightening pictures on the wall, rugs on the floor—as though not until everything in the world was lined up and perfectly true could anybody reasonably expect me to set a word down on paper.
a daily struggle that doesn’t even always occur daily
In general, if a person were to watch me work—which I am grateful no one ever has—I suspect it might look like a lot of cutting and pasting of notes, stopping, starting, staring, intermittent flurries (as the weatherpeople say), sudden visitations (by invisible forces), the contemplation of the spines of various dictionaries and reference books stacked behind the computer, and much reheating of cold coffee (a metaphor and not a metaphor). But what it feels like is running as far as I can with a voice, a tuneful patch of a long, nagging idea. It is a daily struggle that doesn’t even always occur daily. From the time I first started writing, the trick for me has always been to construct a life in which writing could occur. I have never been blocked, never lost faith (or never lost it for longer than necessary, shall we say) never not had ideas and scraps sitting around in notebooks or on Post-its adhered to the desk edge, but I have always been slow and have never had a protracted run of free time. I have always had to hold down a paying job of some sort and now I’m the mother of a small child as well, and the ability to make a literary life while teaching and parenting (to say nothing of housework) is sometimes beyond me. I don’t feel completely outwitted by it but it is increasingly a struggle. If I had a staff of even one person, or could tolerate a small amphetamine habit, or entertain the possibility of weekly blood transfusions, or had been married to Vera Nabokov, or had a housespouse of even minimal abilities, a literary life would be easier to bring about. (In my mind I see all your male readers rolling their eyes. But your female ones—what is that? Are they nodding in agreement? Are their fists in the air?) It’s hardly news that it is difficult to keep the intellectual and artistic hum of your brain going when one is mired in housewifery. This is, I realize, an old complaint from women, but for working women everywhere it continues to have great currency.
interest has more meaning
I do not like the idea of happyness — it is too momentary — I would say that I was always busy and interested in something — interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happyness.
Some things I read this month
- , “‘Just’ Joking? Sexist Talk in Science” (Absolutely Maybe)
- Buzz Bissinger, “Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story” (Vanity Fair)
- Sara Boboltz, “The Story Of Nancy Drew, Once Far More Ballsy Than The Girl Sleuth You Know” (The Huffington Post)
- Elizabeth Gaffney, “Lorrie Moore, The Art of Fiction No. 167” (The Paris Review)
- Allegra Hyde, “The Rumpus Interview with Matthew Baker” (The Rumpus)
- Olga Khazan, “Can Sexuality Be Changed?” (The Atlantic)
- Molly McArdle, “‘He’s Out’: The Exile of Ed Champion” (Brooklyn Magazine)
- Kate Pullinger, “The way we tell stories is evolving along with our smartphones” (The Conversation)
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Rebecca Solnit, “Listen up, women are telling their story now” (The Guardian)
taking a woman at her word
Too many women, particularly groundbreaking women and industry leaders, are afraid to be labeled as feminists. They’re afraid to stand up and say, “Yes, I am a feminist,” for fear of what that label means, for fear of being unable to live up to unrealistic expectations.
Take, for example, Beyoncé, or as I call her, The Goddess. She has emerged, in recent years, as a visible feminist. At the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, she performed in front of the word “feminist” 10 feet high. It was a glorious spectacle to see this pop star openly embracing feminism and letting young women and men know that being a feminist is something to celebrate. As the moment faded, cultural critics began endlessly debating whether or not Beyoncé was, indeed, a feminist. They graded her feminism, instead of simply taking a grown, accomplished woman at her word.
the other identities we inhabit
When we talk about the needs of women, we have to consider the other identities we inhabit. We are not just women. We are people with different bodies, gender expressions, faiths, sexualities, class backgrounds, abilities, and so much more. We need to take into account these differences and how they affect us, as much as we account for what we have in common. Without this kind of inclusion, our feminism is nothing.
stereotypes that imprison people
A lot of our ideas about what we can do at different ages and what age means are so arbitrary — as arbitrary as sexual stereotypes. I think that the young-old polarization and the male-female polarization are perhaps the two leading stereotypes that imprison people. The values associated with youth and with masculinity are considered to be the human norms, and anything else is taken to be at least less worthwhile or inferior. Old people have a terrific sense of inferiority. They’re embarrassed to be old. What you can do when you’re young and what you can do when you’re old is as arbitrary and without much basis as what you can do if you’re a woman or what you can do if you’re a man.
The Remainder Table 