Book review: Sisters of the Revolution

Sometimes I forget how fulfilling it can be to read explicitly feminist writing.

So I have been enjoying the heck out of Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer.

Speculative fiction is a catch-all phrase for science fiction, fantasy, and other harder-to-classify writing with a fabulist "what-if" slant. What if employees were encouraged to conform to corporate culture through biological additions, as in Eileen Gunn's "Stable Strategies for Middle Management"? What if there was "The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet" as in Vandana Singh's story?

This book encompasses an excellent selection of stories from the 1960s to now by a diverse group of writers, both well-known--Angela Carter, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, James Tiptree, Jr. (really Alice Bradley Sheldon)--and up-and-coming--Nnedi Okorafor, Rachel Swirsky.

Although this collection is definitely for adults, I was excited to see a couple of my favorite kidlit authors, Catherynne Valente and Kelly Barnhill, represented. I was also thrilled to discover writers like Nalo Hopkinson and Hiromi Goto.

Some of the stories are familiar, like "The Screwfly Solution" and "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," but these are woven artfully among others arranged so that stories "speak" to one another across time and space. I loved the combination of styles: a journalist's "report" ("The Forbidden Words of Margaret A." by L. Timmel Duchamp) horror, surrealism, sci-fi (Elisabeth Vonarburg's great reimagining of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), sword-and-sorcery, fairy tales, and more.

The strains of feminism are diverse too, with varying degrees of satire, uplifting hear-me-roar grrl power, and horror-filled dystopian warnings. These stories represent women of different cultures, ages, sexual orientations--even species. Each selection is delightful reading and a thoughtful commentary on women's roles in society. These are stick-to-you stories. I know that Susan Palwick's "Gestella," about a werewolf in love, will haunt me.

Highly recommend this book, and I can't wait to dig further into the oeuvre of many of these writers.

Special shout-out to publisher PM Press, an amazing, socially conscious publishing organization out of Oakland. Looking forward to exploring their collection further, too!

Book review: Body, In Good Light by Erin Rodoni

In keeping with April's theme as National Poetry Month, I'm happy to review a lovely book of poetry by a former colleague of mine at Literary Mama, Erin Rodoni.

Erin was the assistant editor in poetry at LM until she had the double good fortune of giving birth to her second child and seeing her first poetry collection in print. Busy woman! Working with her for about a year, I appreciated her careful eye and wide range of poetic appreciation.

Both of these skills are on display in Body, In Good Light. Erin's poetry demonstrates deftness with a variety of styles while offering a clear, consistent voice. Body, in Good Light explores the tension between body and spirit, light and shadow in sensual, clear-eyed poems.

As the book's title suggests, the visceral aspects of the body undergird the poems ("sometimes meat, we dream"), particularly as the body loves, ages, battles disease, and gives birth to and nurtures new life. At the same time, poems revel in qualities of light, especially when imbuing the physical with an internal, spiritual glow, like "tomorrow's sun in her hair."

Erin's startling descriptions, such as "pureed carrots like lamb's blood on the door," made me imagine her as an impressionistic painter who can evoke external as well as internal landscapes by combining visuals, scent, texture, and sound. Check out these lines from "The Woman Who Is Your Mother":

I still love the unapologetic suck of a struck match
and the horse that joyfully bucks its rider no matter
how much shugar it lips from a palm. I know the woman
who is your mother will never forgive herself
for all the ways she has to break you
before the world can.

In the book's third section, motherhood sharpens questions of identity, physicality, and wonder as "the woman / who is your mother still marvels that roaming minerals / in her blood settled to form your bones." I also loved the lines: "Now that I'm never alone, / I suddenly am so // lonesome." Yeah, it's like that. At the same time:

the perfume of another sphere still rises from your body
while you sleep, sweet as the Technicolor sugar at the bottom

of a box of Trix.

Rich imagery, nuanced wordplay, and shifting layers of meaning reward multiple readings of this elegant collection.

On meeting Angie Thomas

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, at our local SCBWI LA/MS JambaLAya conference.

As you can see, I was fangirling a little bit, and I hadn't even read her book yet! I still regret not making intelligent conversation at the signing or later, at dinner. Sigh.

Angie and our regional SCBWI coordinator Cheryl Mathis held an inspiring conversation about Angie's incredible road to publication (and subsequent best-selling status and film-in-production).

Though her story sounds like a fairy tale, I was struck by her discussion of the book she'd written before The Hate U Give--which had been rejected 60 (did I write that down correctly?) times. After banging her head against that wall, her mom said, "Why don't you work on that other one?" meaning what became The Hate U Give. Way to go, Mom!

Obviously, Angie was not a neophyte: she'd earned a BFA in writing, submitted drafts of her queries to Query Shark for feedback, and researched her "dream agent," "stalked" him through Twitter, and contacted him through his agency's Q & A with her idea. As a writer, hearing that her success came after hard work, struggle, and disappointment made it seem even more impressive (and, potentially, achievable for the rest of us!).  

In her talk, Angie addressed the trolling she experienced after starting a diversity hashtag. Speaking to a young black writer who had expressed her admiration for Angie, she said, "What helped me was knowing girls like you would have my book in a few months." Angie's humor, strength, and grace in the face of overwhelming success as well as mean-spirited criticism will stay with me a long time.

To her readers, as well as other writers, Angie Thomas offers "light in the darkness." Many thanks for her visit, and blessings for her continued success.

Book review: The Bitch Is Back

Great title, right?

Perfect for on A Day Without a Woman, when women around the country are marching, striking, and celebrating women's work and accomplishments (by showing what happens if we step away, Lysistrata-style).

I'm home with a sick kid today, so I'm celebrating women by wearing red (and my 1 Billion Rising t-shirt) and writing about women's writing. Unpaid labor? Maybe so. But a joy to create and support women creators.

Sequel to The Bitch in the House, which I haven't read yet, this collection of personal essays is the literary equivalent to eavesdropping on 26 juicy conversations, getting the dirt (albeit well-composed and edited) on a variety of women in midlife:

• The university president who hobbles in heels for six months after breaking her foot but before seeing a doctor, scared to admit she's getting older
• A trans woman who comes out after 12 years of "supposedly heterosexual marriage"--and whose wife chooses to stay after her transition
• Two different stories from the "other women" who blew up their lives for a lover...and the sometimes messy, sometimes beautiful aftermath
• A Muslim woman, married at 14, who earned a Ph.D. while raising 8 kids and her thoughts on leaning in...and out

A diverse selection of writers, yet with several common threads: Most are professional authors, editors, or professors, not surprising for a memoir collection. A large contingent are able to jet off to Paris and Hawaii, own second homes, and write $12,000 checks. This lends an odd homogeneous quality to the voices that I can't relate to, though I connect to the emotional core of their stories.

One essay, however, sticks out like a sore thumb. "Dirty Work" is the story of a woman who owns a housecleaning company "as told to" the editor. Her story of surviving abuse and homelessness is authentic and important, yet the essay's structural differences, as well as the narrator's class and age, ostracize her story as if it were something outside the norm. I wish there had been a wider socioeconomic range in this collection to represent a truer range of experiences.

Overall, I was engaged and engrossed in these well-written stories from women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. In our youth-obsessed culture, it's refreshing to know what midlife women think about where they've been and where they're going.

I recommend this book for any woman with a story to tell. C'mon, you know you do.