Hi and welcome to this week’s Lez Liberty Lit!
Things About Queer Books (And Other Books Relevant To Your Interests)
“When disability is used in literature, pop culture, and media, it’s often implemented as a characterization device rather than as a reflection of society — a metaphor for deficiency or vulnerability,” writes Charlotte Loftus at Bitch. So how does disability work in science fiction and fantasy? Loftus continues:
“Sci-fi/fantasy fans and creators look to the genre for visions of better worlds, but too often those worlds include only bodies that are valued in our current one: The one ring to rule them all had better be held by a white, heteronormative, abled male. Instead of a progress narrative that effectively eliminates difference, sci-fi should be asking for whom this future was created, and at what cost? Instead of restoring order by curing or overcoming disability, sci-fi and fantasy could acknowledge that disruptive and disabled bodies and minds create unique perspectives and possibilities for a horizon that includes accessible futures.”
Read and know and listen to these 15 indigenous feminists. Read these six Canadian trans women writers. Read these five Hispanic authors. Read Angie Thomas. Contextualize Henrietta Lacks with this reading list. Read these books about witches. Read these LA-focused books. (And after, this alphabetized list of Hollywood places.) Read these seaside novels. Read Granta’s list of the 21 young American novelists to watch this decade.
Ana Valens, in a review of Nerve Endings: The New Trans Erotic, edited by Tobi Hill-Meyer, calls it “a carefully edited and curated erotic collection by and for trans people. It presents an array of topics—everything from gender dysphoria in trans dating to sex work as a trans man to learning to love one’s body as a trans woman of color. Not every story is erotic, as some stories are more about trans sexuality than they are about trans sex. But with this pioneering collection paving the way for more trans erotica, Hill-Meyer has done for trans erotica what Topside Press’ The Collection did for trans prose. Trans readers, this one is a must-grab, no matter what.”
“Fictional drugs of literature, ranked.”
Cardboard presses make printing more accessible.
“The idea that not just good words but meticulously good words in English make you a good person has been around a few centuries,” writes Sarah Bronson at the Establishment. And guess what? Grammar actually comes from privilege.
Check out these photos from “Black Lives Have {Always) Mattered,” part of an exhibition curated by Kalia Brooks at the International Center of Photography.
There are less queer adult fiction books being published, but more sales.
Contemporary women writers do fairytales differently.
Willa Cather’s oeuvre: kinda gay, or really gay?
Claire Rudy Foster writes about writing, editing, and choking at the Rumpus:
“My writing and editing have a reputation for being ferocious. Omit needless words is the injunction from Strunk & White. I came to this naturally. I have always been unsparing—of myself, and others. Sometimes, I read with a belt around my neck. Try it. Every word is precious. Try cutting every adjective. Deny yourself a part of speech and see how weak your sentence constructions are. I have trained myself, ruthless as a dominatrix. How can this be tighter? One reader told me that my paragraphs were so dense that he choked, reading them. I knew then that I had succeeded.”
