Feature image via booksheflporn.com.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth was removed from a high school summer reading list in Delaware, allegedly due to complaints about its inappropriate language. At Diversity in YA, Malinda Lo discusses the removal:
“Board president Spencer Brittingham told the reader who wrote to him: ‘I can assure you that I am not homophobic and never did this area of the book enter the conversation.’
Is this really the truth? To me, it sounds like the argument that women aren’t hired (or reviewed, or acknowledge, or heard) not because they’re women, but because they’re not as qualified as men. Is the real issue that these parents have with Cameron Post the fact that she uses the word fuck, or is it easier — and more politically correct these days — to point the finger at the F-word than to acknowledge any discomfort with same-sex relationships?”
At the New Inquiry, Phoebe Maltz Bovy argues that trigger warnings at the academic level suck because they imply the existence of universal “great books.”
Cover art featuring feminine signifiers marginalizes women’s writing, writes Eugenia Williamson in the Boston Globe: “The implied correlation between feminine imagery and literary inferiority somehow hasn’t stopped publishers seeking wider sales from trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Faber’s 50th anniversary reissue of “The Bell Jar,” for instance, tarted up Sylvia Plath’s classic novel of existential despondency with an illustration of a woman wearing gobs of eyeliner sneering into a compact. Readers new to the book would never suspect its colossal cultural importance or that its author had stuck her head in an oven weeks before its British publication.”
At the Toast, Alison Stine writes about women who make street art.
The Millions has released its second-half-of-2014 book preview, which features words by Roxane Gay, Sarah Waters, Lydia Davis, Emily Gould, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel and more.
Tablet has compiled an essential queer Jewish reading list.
An interactive map from the New Inquiry charts how often names of American cities have appeared in literary works in the last two centuries.
Bookstore shelving can rescue books.
J.K. Rowling has written about Harry, Ron and Hermione as adults in her Quidditch World Cup coverage as Rita Skeeter.
Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian reviewed Gender Failure by Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon.
At the Lesbrary, Nicole reviewed Sigil Fire by Erzabet Bishop. Casey reviewed My Education by Susan Choi. Kalyanii reviewed Owl Eyes by Georgie Watts.
At Lambda Literary, Anna Furtado reviewed Nightingale by Andrea Bramhall. Stacey D’Erasmo discussed writing about music and straight people in an interview. Daphne Sidor reviewed Pissing in a River by Lorrie Sprecher. Jackson Nash reviewed Queerly Beloved: A Love Story Across Genders by Jacob Anderson-Minshall. Renee James discussed writing a trans crime novel.
Recently, on Autostraddle: Elicia Sanchez wrote about the language of comedy. Maddie wrote about where you journal. Maddie also wrote about how queer students need more representation in textbooks. Mey wrote about her feminist pull list.
Events To Watch Out For:
August 7, New York: Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color and Lambda Literary are hosting a summer reading series. This event features Kamilah Aisha Moon, Metta Sáma, Amber Atiya, Julia Guez and Elisa Gonzalez at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House (NYU, 58 W 10th St.), 7 p.m.
August 14, New York: Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color and Lambda Literary are hosting a summer reading series. This event features Franny Choi, Joseph Legaspi, Jackie Wang, Paul Tran and Ocean Vuong at the Audre Lorde Project (147 W 24th St., 3rd floor), 7 p.m.
August 21, New York: Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color and Lambda Literary are hosting a summer reading series. This event features Eduardo C Corral, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Denice Frohman and Roberto Montes at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House (NYU, 58 W 10th St.), 7 p.m.
Now to 24 August, Toronto: The Ryerson Image Centre is presenting What It Means To Be Seen: Photography and Queer Visibility, on queer media portrayals, curated by Sophie Hackett (main gallery, 33 Gould St.).
Know of a queer event with literary merit? Send it to us! The Liberty Lit is bi-weekly.
What We’re Reading:
Carolyn: I read Cat Person by Seo Kim and On Loving Women by Diane Obomsawin. A few weeks ago I went to a truly excellent used bookstore, and so many of the next things I read are going to be trashy sex guides from the early 90s, but I’m also excited to find and likely devour a copy of Edan Lepucki’s California: A Novel.
Rachel: I just started Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly J. Cogswell!
Books! They are really great. You just won’t believe how great they are. You may think that the Internet’s great, but that’s just peanuts compared to books. In Lez Liberty Lit, we talk about literary shit that’s happening that you should probably care about.
The name “Liberty Lit” was inspired by the short-lived literary journal produced by Angela Chase at Liberty High School in 1994.
