Hey there and welcome to this week’s Lez Liberty Lit!
You know what today is a good day to do? Preorder friend of the pod Austen Osworth’s debut novel, WE ARE WATCHING ELIZA BRIGHT.
Toni Morrison as an editor changed book publishing forever, writes Arielle Gray at ZORA:
“For many, Morrison is mostly lauded as a writer. Yet her role as an editor at Random House shimmers beneath the veil, a fun fact buried beneath the weight of her literary accomplishments. […]
When we think of an editor, we think of notes in the margins, strikethroughs, and (lots of) corrections. But Morrison’s role went beyond annotating and adjusting manuscripts. She was a caretaker of a blossoming universe of Black literature, stewarding a cadre of writers and thinkers who would change the world. Morrison considered everything, from book jacket designs to which cover colors would catch the eye in bookstore windows. Her hands played a part in everything, including the advertising of the books she edited to ensure the works reached the eyes of literary critics and academics.”
Here’s how Octavia E. Butler reimagines sex and survival.
Here’s how to arrange a poetry collection using mix tape rules.
“Writer Torrey Peters wants a punk utopia for trans girls and a Cuisinart mixer.”
At the Rumpus, Melissa Broder discusses Milk Fed, her recent novel about hunger and desire, including the intersection of food, sex, and spirituality; obsession; and the fear of too much:
“The fear of too-muchery—of being too much (which is one manifestation of the fear of not being enough)—can infiltrate every appetite: hunger, sexual desire, spiritual yearning, familial longing. If a person says in one area, “Better to repress my needs so they don’t get rejected—because rejection is painful,” they’ll likely do that in lots of areas. There is no way to separate the appetites. They are interconnected. Geneen Roth said something like this in her book Women, Food, and God. That our relationship with food and our bodies is our relationship with God.”
Read these books by queer authors. Read these six kink books by Black authors. Read these books when you crave calm after doomscrolling. Read these books by and about Afghan women. Read these books when you want to celebrate women’s history. Read these seven novels about women who reject expectations.
