After Realism, ed. by André Forget
Finished reading: After Realism edited by André Forget 📚
A really fun read of short stories by Canadian authors. Some were experimental, some long, some short, some really out there. It was a fun few days as I worked through them.
My favorites were:
- Carleigh Baker’s “Baby Boomer”: wow, short and powerful
- Tom Thor Buchanan’s “Jamaica”: another great story. So many loose threads that didn’t impact the story one iota.
- Camilla Grudova’s “Madame Flora’s”: wow, weird but interesting
- Casey Plett’s “Portland, Oregon”: there is no reading joy more perfect that a Casey Plett short story! I love her writing. I knew I’d read this before, it was in her debut collection, A Safe Girl to Love.
- David Hubert’s “Chemical Valley”: fucking dark. Good writing.
- Michael Lapointe’s “The Stunt”: powerful and very dark. Sadly true.
I also thought the following were good:
- Ryan Avanzado’s “Tita Esme’s Room”: pretty good. Probably needed more space at the end to flesh story out. But pretty good.
- Paola Ferrante’s “Underside of a Wing”: good read, nice running repetition of the word albatross and its meaning to the author)
- Sofia Mostaghimi’s “Roxane and Julieta”
- Cason Sharpe’s “California Underwater”: good quick slice of life, nicely written too.
John Elizabeth Stintzi has a piece in here. It wasn’t one of my favorites in this collection, but please check out their novel Vanishing Monuments or their poetry collection, Junebat. Those are heart-shatteringly beautiful.
I can’t believe where we are today. It just boggles the mind and the heart. And, I got this in my email this morning. It’s a review for a book published in 2022, though so apropos for today. It’s title? “The betrayal of the humanities: the university during the Third Reich”.
This Decoder podcast w/Matt Mullenweg is enlightening & depressing. His picture should be next to the definition of apologist. His fuzzy & non responses re Tumblr and Meta and the trans community mad me very angry. Beware burning your user base…
Finished reading: Empowered: Cultivating Voices for Liberation and Unity by Camryn Garrett 📚
A fantastic collection of young writers that gives me hope for the future.
I put a new page up on my blog highlighting some favorite movies, songs, tv, etc.
Nothing beats the joy of cutting into perfect onions and bell peppers when cooking. Probably one of the best onions I ever saw. Yay!
Fucking Hitler incarnate. Not in my name. Not this attack. Not in the US’s name either. This is his little cadre of hate. They are burning America down to the ground.
First time painting my fingernails. I’ve done toes before but never fingernails. It’s eye opening. To my sisters, I can only say how powerful it is. I’m not afraid. Sounds silly but it’s not. We are here and we will not go away. Ever.
Consider giving to The Trevor Campaign to help provide life-saving services to young LGBTQ+ people. I just did.
Cruel attack on the most vulnerable
The Trump regime contains to further its goal of genocide for trans people, and also all who fall under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Trump Administration cuts LGBTQ-specific care from suicide hotline.
This is cruel and inhuman. It reeks of pure hatred and violence. Why cut off this lifeline to people? The service that the Trevor project provides will still be around, but it won’t be a “button push” away through the one, national clearinghouse line for suicide prevention. Also, the Trans Lifeline Hotline is still around and can be reached at (877) 565-8860 in the US and (877) 330-6366 in Canada.
It feels like they announced this during Pride month just to make it extra hurtful and painful. These people running our nation (into the ground) are like a bunch of bullies in a middle school playground. However, in our case, their actions will most certainly contribute to the deaths of our fellow citizens.
It’s such a wonderful feeling to have this urgent need to tell people about me. I’ve kept things bottled up so long that it’s exhilarating to be less secretive, more open, more proud.
Finished reading: The Dream of Doctor Bantam by Jeanne Thornton 📚
10/10: Jeanne Thornton knows how to get in your head and your guts. A visceral story that still has joy and sadness in measured doses. I read Summer Fun a year before this, but I can see and feel the same things. This doesn’t mean each novel isn’t great on their own, but her style of grabbing the reader by the throat was well developed when she wrote The Dream of Dr. Bantam and it carries on to her later works.
A new (and welcomed) step
To paraphrase Jane Eyre, ‘Dear Reader, I TOLD him."
That is, I told my best friend that I was trans. They totally accepted me, and were happy that I was finally able to find my truth. It came out in a text. My finger hovered over the send button for like five minutes, constantly re-editing and thinking how I wanted to say it. But, it came out beautifully (I think) and the response was immediate and positive. I didn’t expect it to be different, I’ve known them forever, but it was validating, heartwarming, and a welcome moment on this long journey. We then talked on the phone right away for a long time. It was so good to here their voice and say out loud what had been in my heart for so long. They were at the top of the list for who I wanted to tell.
P.S. Having referenced Charlotte Brontë, I do have to say that she’s my least favorite of the Brontë sisters. Anne is tops for me (Tenant of Wildfell Hall is one of my favorite books of all time). Emily is next up. Was there ever a darker piece of literature than Wuthering Heights?
The meaning behind this tattoo is multi-layered. I’m sure you can guess some parts. One you might not know is drawn from Homer’s Iliad (opening of Book 11). This line has resonated with me from the very first time I read the Iliad, and it still warms my heart and soul each time I reread it. (This is from Emily Wilson’s translation, one of my top three translations of this work.)
Then Dawn arose from bed beside Tithonus to bring new light to deathless gods and mortals”
I loved this line before I even chose my name. Maybe that helped direct me to it.
You build up the fright or worry and then you go and get the tattoo and are like, “wow, I way over-worried”. It was great. I’m sure having an artist like I did helps a lot. They talked with me about the tattoo, about life, about me, them, etc. Was really wonderful.
Hope
“The Chase” (TNG 6:20) remains one of my favorite Star Trek episodes. It, along with “Darmok” follow in the footsteps of the best of this franchise. Thinking sci-fi with a look to the past, the future, and creating a sense of Hope and unity.
Hope is a rare commodity in these times, especially under a growing dystopian Trump dictatorship. His Gestapo disappears people off the streets and he threatens Constitutionally-protected rights of American citizens.
But with a Pride Month high and shows that swell my heart, I can believe in Hope. I can and will fight for my dreams, my rights and my existence.
Kate Wilhelm, writer/goddess
It’s both exciting and sad that I’ve discovered so many things now that I’m older that I never knew about when I was younger. This isn’t about being trans, that’s something I’ve known since I was in single digit years. No, this is about an author.
This is about finding authors who were alive and writing when I was devouring a genre but never heard of them. I was at the library all the time, constantly checking out sci-fi books to read. I also spent every last cent I earned or was gifted for birthdays/holidays at my local bookshop. Books were my candy growing up.
This particular author is Kate Wilhelm. She was writing short stories and novels since the 1960s, especially in the New Wave movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Her writing is amazing, beautiful prose & psychologically-based stories. I love her atmospheres (no SF pun intended) & the inner lives of her characters. Three of my favorites books of hers were The Abyss (two novellas), Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1977 Hugo Award for best novel) and Somerset Dreams and Other Fictions (collection of short stories and novellas).
She died in 2018. I read my first of her books in 2020. I could have been a fan. I could have seen her at a convention or a book signing. I could have told her how much she impacted me (both as a reader and a writer (her craft can teach a great deal)).
Why didn’t I know about her? Maybe because she was a woman in a pretty male-dominated genre, especially at her peak? But, she outclassed so many of them. Maybe because I didn’t look hard enough? I’m not sure, but I try to sample so many more authors today so that I don’t miss out on someone amazing who I might be able to have a connection while we’re both still walking around.
Just my 2¢ on an idea that popped into my head at 4:14 am this morning.
Tattoo booked! Next week. So excited (and a little scared). First one, but the design is something I created and it’s so affirming!