Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 31

Two Lovely Things

Today I got a call from one of the stars of this movie. She left a voice mail message because I have been working on the phone most of the day. She wanted another copy of the current issue of Sinister Wisdom, Sinister Wisdom 97: Out Latina Lesbians. She said it was a great issue. I love getting this kind of feedback about Sinister Wisdom. More than that, I loved her message. She spoke very loudly and clearly into the telephone and then said, “I’m keeping my voice down because my spouse is sleeping in the other room, so when you call back call me on my cell.” I imagine my beloved and I living down in Florida, keeping up with the latest technology.

Then of course there are these great images of the new tiny giant panda at the National Zoo. Watch the video and see mama panda try to leave the den only to have the little baby screech for her return. Not to be missed!

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Malicious Code

In late June when I was in the San Francisco Bay Area on a research trip, I received an email from a lovely fellow alerting me to the fact that the Lesbian Poetry Archive had been hacked. A little bit of malicious code would have been fine, annoying, but fine. It was not just a little bit of malicious code, however. The hackers managed to completely delete the home page and insert a photo and some profane language. (I paste the image of the hacked home page below.) Fortunately, I note wryly, nothing that I had not heard before. The night I discovered the hacking, I managed with only my iPad to delete the hostile image and language and insert another stand in home page. I did not have an opportunity that evening to go through the site closely and see what else had been done.Tonight, I finally sat down and did that. Four hours later after a painstaking review, I discovered that about eighty percent of the pages had little bits of malicious code inserted with links that trigger some sort of script. I edited most of the pages, deleting the malicious code and fixing the pages, restoring them to what they were. My eyes are crossed from this detail work.

This time with the site, however, reminded me of the many other things that I want to do with the Lesbian Poetry Archive. I hope over the next months that I will have an opportunity to return some attention to it, installing new exhibits, curating new ebooks, and other projects. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, check out what is there!

  

Filed under: lesbian, lesbian studies, poetry, scholarship

Creative Camaraderie

How lucky. I spent a good part of the day on Saturday with an extraordinary filmmaker that I had the good fortune to host as a part of the DC LGBT Center’s Reel Affirmations film festival. Now I admit, it gave me pause to give over a good chunk of my Saturday. Many people know that my beloved has been working a job primarily based in New York, so she travels up there every week for three or four days. Even the summer has not had any weeks with her home full time. So our weekends are sacred. Friends know this; I am hesitant to commit to anything, just enjoying the dailiness of sharing coffee and newspapers and walks with the dogs. So committing to hosting a filmmaker and the time involved was a decision with prior deliberation. I am glad I did it.

There is something special about time, focused time, with other people invested in imagining new cultural objects and then working to bring them into the world. Of course, I know a lot of people engaged in this work. Still meeting someone new and talking about creative processes and the material conditions that make creative work possible is incredibly exciting. I know more about filmmaking than I did last Friday. I appreciate more the nuance of film. It is a different creative discipline, but the intersections of concerns was profound. We shared stories about financing creative work, discussed the dynamics of fundraising. I could see how this artist drew different lines and created his own creative priorities. It was energizing and inspiring. I am grateful for the opportunity. 

And yes, I missed some time with the beloved, but a holiday weekend is coming. We never really make up for lost time, but rediscover time anew together. Meanwhile, I celebrate the creators in my life, particularly the ones who share paper creations with me.

  

Filed under: personal writing, poetry

Extracurricular Writing

I am back to the discipline of writing a thousand words a day. Sometimes they are done by ten in the morning. Sometimes I struggle until two in the afternoon to get the words written. Either way, every day, working with words and ideas. The core writing is poetry and my prose writing on lesbian publishing histories. Yet, everyday cannot be days of poems or formal prose. Some days I write what I consider the extracurricular pieces. Reviews, columns, promotional items and occasionally pieces of joy about a poet that I love as I did for Brick Books about Betsy Warland.

A nifty little website aggregates these occasional pieces and shows stats about them. I love these kinds of statistics as they make me feel quite productive, even as I glance at all of the work that remains to be done.

  

Filed under: personal writing Tagged: Betsy Warland, blog writing, contently

Epistolary Life

  

A special gift in the mail the other day. A letter from a former student. Long. Handwritten. Tucked inside a handmade envelop made from the page of a magazine. Special in so many ways. I wrote back promptly. As I do with most correspondence that comes through the U.S. Postal Service. I want to support that behavior of taking pen to paper, stuffing it into and envelop, affixing a stamp, and dropping it into a mail box. I still think that there is something important about these acts, something even sacred about the letter writing process. It provides time for reflection for the writer and this intimate moment of communion with another human being for the receiver. Letters always prompt me to think about what I need to say and to whom I need to say it. Who will you write to today?

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Call for Contributions: Lesbian Literature and Aesthetic Diversity in the 20th Century

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Call for Contributions

When We Were Modern: Lesbian Literature and Aesthetic Diversity in the 20th Century

Collection edited by Jaime Harker and Julie R. Enszer

How do we locate lesbian writers and lesbian characters in popular, middlebrow, and highbrow fiction in the 20th century? What meanings can we make of lesbian identities and lesbian communities from this fiction across the century?

Considering lesbian writers and lesbian characters across the 20th century challenges the narrative of the closet that emerges in 1970 and continues today. The apparent massive coming out in the 1970s and 1980s was in relationship to a closet that was constructed simultaneously. In the 1950s, Elizabeth Bishop did not live like she was in the closet. During the 1910s and 1920s, Amy Lowell was not in the closet. In 1946, when Jo Sinclair won the Harper & Brothers Prize for her novel, The Wasteland, the lesbian character central to the novel was not excised, nor was she in the closet.

When We Were Modern: Lesbian Literature and Aesthetic Diversity in the 20th Century will explore how literature by lesbians with open lesbian characters circulated widely. The political and material realities for lesbians during the 20th century, including the openness of the 20s and 30s for lesbians and the constriction of the 50s and early 60s, are still largely unmapped for lesbians and lesbian literature. And the influence of those lesbians on writers of the 70s and beyond has also not been investigated; what happens when we read more contemporary lesbian writers as part of an ongoing, diverse lesbian tradition? This anthology will begin to construct a new genealogy of lesbian literary traditions in the 20th century.

Exploring the historical, biographical, and material aspects of lesbian literature and aesthetic diversity, the editors invite proposals for contributions by September 30th with full papers by January 30th. Email proposals to Jaime Harker, jlharker@olemiss.edu, and Julie R. Enszer, JulieREnszer@gmail.com.

While we are in discussion with editors, this collection is not yet under contract.

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The Long View

I love biography, reading it, writing bits of it. I now have not one but two full length biographies that I want to write. Thinking about biographies often leads me to think about how I might narrate my own life, how particular moments, particular decisions have a cascading effect weeks, months, years down the road. Biographers identify these moments in people’s lives, organize them into chapters, animating incidents, illustrative moments. We cannot do this narrative trick with our own lives. At least not in the moment, only with the retrospectoscope. So while we know that our decisions, the actions of our lives in a particular moment, have meaning in our future, we cannot quite understand what that meaning is. It is just slightly out of our reach. It is being held in the future. We may know, eventually, but in the present it is elusive, even as it whispers to us to find it.

Another way of saying this is, how does the story end? How does it all work out? One of my satisfactions in reading fiction is seeing how a world contained in the novel works out, seeing what happens to the characters, how conflicts are both created and resolved. Again, we can discover this in a few sittings with a novel. In life, the minutes, hours, and days need their full count for resolution and often that resolution is not as neat as a writer might render it.

All of this makes me think about the extraordinary poem by Genevieve Taggard, “Long View.” Taggard understands this yearning, this desire to peer into the future, to read a chapter ahead, to see how things work out. She gives us word of our imagined future, knowing how much we need it, want it, desire it. It provides some brief comfort.

LONG VIEW

Never heard happier laughter. 

Where did you hear it?

Somewhere in the future. 

Very far in the future?

Oh no. It was natural. It sounded

Just like our own. American, sweet and easy.

People were talking together. They sat on the ground. It was summer.

And the old told stories of struggle. The young listened. I overheard

Our own story, retold. They looked up at the stars

Hearing the serious words. Someone sang.

They loved us who had passed away.

They forgot all our errors. Our names were mixed. The story was long.

The young people danced. They brought down

New boughs for the flame. They said, Go on with the story now.

What happened next?

For us there was silence,

Something like pain or tears. But they took us with them.

Their laughter was peace. I never heard happier.

Their children large and beautiful. Like us, but new-born.

This was in the mountains in the west.

They were resting. They knew each other well.

The trees and rivers are on the map, but the time

Is not yet. I listened again. Their talk was ours

With many favorite words. I heard us all speaking.

But they spoke of better things, soberly. They were wise.

And learned. They sang not only of us.

They remembered thousands, and many countries, far away.

One poet who sat there with them began to talk of the future.

Then they were silent again. And they looked at the sky.

And then in the light of the stars they banked their fire as we do.

Scuffing the ground, and said goodnight. 

This poem I bring back to you

Knowing that you wonder often, that you want

Word of these people.

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A Midsummer Night

Midsummer. When I saw the first few posts, I cringed. It cannot be midsummer already. I have too much on my lists yet to be accomplished. I cannot concede a half way point. Then I realized, we are half way between the equinoxes. That I can fathom. The truth is, I like the waning of the light in the second half of the year. Fall weather is my favorite. I like by October how evening comes early. I love the hours of darkness from November through February. I sleep more. I sleep more deeply. I feel more rested. I feel happier. 

Long days of daylight create the frenzy of work. I start sometimes at seven or seven-thirty. Always a break around five to feed the crew, but often, with Kim in New York especially, undertake another project from six until eight. Lazy days of summer? Ha!

Midsummer and also, almost, mid year. A time to take stock, particularly for those of us with reading challenges. How is our reading going? Will we make the goals we set out in late December or early January? I am having a good year of reading. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry. I am reading it all. Inhaling words and books and ideas. It is a lovely chaotic, challenging, inchoate mess. Could one ask for more from reading? For the first time though, I feel organized in WHAT I am reading and in the amount of time I dedicate to reading each week.

Last year, I realized the limited time we all have. I recognized that there are a finite number of books I will read in this life. I want to read the rights books. The books that I might love. The writers that I want to support. This realization lead to the great personal library reorganization project, to cogent lists, to my own GoodReads challenge. And now mid year I feel satisfied with my reading, my pace, my intentions, my outcomes.

It is good on a midsummer night to cast one’s eyes to something that brings satisfaction, pleasure, even glee. Let me be puckish: what brings you great satisfaction this midsummer night?

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Words or Works

 * I have a penchant for binaries. In the queer work, I still find comfort in lesbian or straight. In the biracial, multiracial world, I cleave to black and white. I am hip to the deconstruction of binaries; I understand the rejection of the bipartite in favor of nuance, complexity. Still and all, I like exclusive double categories. Call me retro. Call me simple. If you do not like it, click away from this post.

As a young woman the question of where to put one’s time and by extension one’s faith into words or works interested me. Was it better to devote time and energy (which, not incidentally, seemed limitless then) to words? To writing beautiful lines? Sublime sentences? Or was it better to do good works? To put one’s time and energy into doing the work of the world? Being of service to people and to communities? Works or words? Words or works?

At twenty, I cast my lot with works. And this early decision created a filter by which I continue to make judgments. I evaluate people on their works. Not what do they say, but what do they do. How many times have I said, “Past behavior is the best indication of future behavior?” Even poets, I evaluate them based on the words on the page in combination with their works in the world. I link the material and the aesthetic indelibly. It is part of my scholarly method.

And yet. I have moments of doubt. What if I were to change allegiances to words. What possibilities would that open? What new paths would fealty to words offer? What if I chose words?

*The image of Georgia O’Keefe seems particularly meaningful today as I am half way through Jessica Jacob’s wonderful new book Pelvis with Distance.

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27th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners Announced

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JUNE 2, 2015

Publicity contact:         Tony Valenzuela, Executive Director

Phone: (323) 376-6801

E-mail: tvalenzuela@lambdaliterary.org

27th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners Announced

Rita Mae Brown and John Waters Honored

Special Entr’acte Performances Given by Lauren Patten of the Smash Hit Broadway Musical, Fun Home and Musician Toshi Reagon

New York, NY – The winners of the 27th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”) were announced last night in a gala ceremony hosted by comedienne Kate Clinton at The Great Hall at Cooper Union. It occurred on the heels of BookExpo America, the book publishing industry’s largest annual gathering of booksellers, publishers, authors, and readers. The Lambda ceremony brought together over 550 attendees, sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence in LGBT literature and 27 years of the groundbreaking literary awards. Lauren Patten of the hit Broadway show Fun Home and performer Toshi Reagon graced the stage with special performances. The celebration continued in SOHO at the VIP After-Party hosted by Scholastic at the Scholastic Greenhouse & Terrace with celebrity DJ Sean McMahill spinning tunes.

The ceremony opened with an animated video by Melanie La Rosa and Johanna Campos. It cleverly symbolized the fundamental elements of the Lambda Literary Awards, as it depicted superheroes saving a town called “Gaytham” with literature. As master of ceremonies, Clinton once again stood up to the mic to bon mot her way through her fourth consecutive year as the self-described Julie McCoy, aka cruise director of the evening’s Loveboat of literary Lammy Awards. Those too young to catch the reference were encouraged “to Google it.”

Feminist legend Gloria Steinem introduced Rita Mae Brown, author of the classic, Rubyfruit Jungle, who received the Pioneer Award. Describing laughter as “an orgasm of the mind,” she praised Brown for always understanding joy and laughter. Brown described Steinem as “our North Star. If you can find her, you’ll never be lost.”

It wasn’t a love fest, but a joke fest when gossip columnist Liz Smith introduced filmmaker and author John Waters, who received Lambda’s Trustee Award for Excellence in Literature. Smith said, “Nowadays Andy Warhol,” speaking of the icon with whom Waters is often compared, “is a multi-billion-dollar industry, but John Waters is the real thing. John is truly sweet. Andy only appeared that way.” Waters’s entire speech was punctuated with a steady stream of one-liners. He dubbed the Lammy Awards as the Imperial margarine of queer royalty. And he dedicated the award to the original owners of the Provincetown Bookstore where he worked for a summer in his youth and where he received his true education.

In a sign of the transgender coming of age times in which we’re living, Casey Plett winner in the Transgender Fiction category for A Safe Girl to Love ended her rousing acceptance speech with, “The transgender community is taking over!” The Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Awards were presented to writers Anne Balay and Daisy Hernandez.

The special interlude performances each merited standing ovations. Musician Toshi Reagon accompanied herself on guitar as she sang “Freedom,” and “Kindness,” which she dedicated to the late author Octavia Butler. Lauren Patten, who plays the college-age version of Alison Bechdel on Broadway in the hit musical Fun Home (based on Bechdel’s graphic memoir and nominated for 12 Tony Awards) sang “Changing My Major” about the revelation of first love with another woman.

“Throughout tonight’s ceremony we were reminded of the impact that LGBT literature has on people’s lives,” said Tony Valenzuela, Lambda Literary Foundation Executive Director.  “Congratulations to all the winners and honorees.”

As always, the stage sparkled with a glittering roster of presenters from the worlds of film, television, theatre, politics, religion and, of course, literature. Just some of the presenters who graced the stage were: Alison Bechdel,Justin Vivian Bond, Andrew Rannells, Susie Bright, Alan Cumming, Janet Mock and Michelangelo Signorile.

27th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners

LESBIAN FICTION

Yabo, Alexis De Veaux, RedBone Press

GAY FICTION

I Loved You More, Tom Spanbauer, Hawthorne Books

BISEXUAL FICTION

Give It to Me, Ana Castillo, The Feminist Press

TRANSGENDER FICTION

A Safe Girl To Love, Casey Plett, Topside Press

LGBT DEBUT FICTION

The Walk-In Closet, Abdi Nazemian, Curtis Brown Unlimited

LGBT NONFICTION

Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS, Martin Duberman, The New Press

BISEXUAL NONFICTION

Fire Shut Up In My Bones, Charles M. Blow, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

TRANSGENDER NONFICTION

Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man, Thomas Page McBee, City Lights/Sister Spit

LESBIAN POETRY

Mysterious Acts by My People, Valerie Wetlaufer, Sibling Rivalry Press

GAY POETRY

[insert] boy, Danez Smith, YesYes Books

LESBIAN MYSTERY

The Old Deep and Dark, Ellen Hart, Minotaur Books

GAY MYSTERY

Blackmail, My Love: A Murder Mystery, Katie Gilmartin, Cleis Press

LESBIAN MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith, Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks, with Barbara Smith,  SUNY Press

GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY – 2 WINNERS:

GAY MEMOIR:

The Prince of Los Cocuyos, Richard Blanco, HarperCollins/Ecco

GAY BIOGRAPHY:

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, John Lahr, W. W. Norton & Company

LESBIAN ROMANCE

The Farmer’s Daughter, Robbi McCoy, Bella Books

GAY ROMANCE

Salvation: A Novel of the Civil War, Jeff Mann, Bear Bones Books

LESBIAN EROTICA

Lesbian Sex Bible, Diana Cage, Quiver Books

GAY EROTICA

The King, Tiffany Reisz, MIRA Books

LGBT ANTHOLOGY

Understanding and Teaching US Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History, Leila J. Rupp & Susan K. Freeman, University of Wisconsin Press

LGBT CHILDREN’S/YOUNG ADULT

Five, Six, Seven, Nate!, Tim Federle, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

LGBT DRAMA

Bootycandy, Robert O’Hara, Samuel French

LGBT GRAPHIC NOVELS

Second Avenue Caper, Joyce Brabner; Art by Mark Zingarelli, Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux

LGBT SF/F/HORROR

Bitter Waters, Chaz Brenchley, Lethe Press

LGBT STUDIES

The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within U.S. Slave Culture, Vincent Woodard, Ed. Justin A. Joyce and Dwight McBride, New York University Press

2015 Corporate Sponsors:

President’s Circle Level: Penguin Random House, Scholastic

Benefactor Level: Ketel One Vodka, FUN HOME, Macy’s, Target Cue

Patron Level: American Institute of Bisexuality, Barnes & Noble, Harper Perennial

Friend Level: Arsenal Pulp Press, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly, Bold Strokes Books, Chelsea Station Editions, Chronicle Books, Cleis Press, Curve Magazine, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, The Feminist Press, Headmaster Magazine, Riptide Publishing, Samhain Publishing, Seal Press, Simon & Schuster, YESYES Books

Gift Bag Contributors: Atria, Curve magazine, Headmaster magazine, Penguin Books for Young Readers, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, University of Minnesota Press

Individual Underwriters: Timothy Evanson, Robert Ferrante & Tony Valenzuela, Katherine V. Forrest & Josephine Hercus, Tom Healy & Fred P. Hochberg, Larry Kramer & David Webster, Judith Markowitz & Susan Franz, David McConnell, Jay Moore, Kay Percy, Eddie Sarfaty & Court Stroud, Dr. Laura Shawver & Tracy Macuga, S. Chris Shirley, Pamela Sloss, Stephen Soucy & Tom Becktold

2015 Lambda Literary Awards Host Committee

Co-Chairs: Jerome Murphy, Amy Scholder

John Bateman

Kevin Brannon

Jamie Brickhouse

Michael Carroll

Paul Dierkes

Dick Donahue

Michael Fauver

Paul Florez

Roman Freeser

David Gale

Antonio Gonzalez

David Groff

William Johnson

Michele Karlsberg

Elizabeth Koke

Melanie LaRosa

Mario Lopez-Cordero

Bill Miller

Dan Manjovi

Nick Nicholson

Angelo Nikolopoulos

Julia Pastore

Lori Perkins

Charles Rice-Gonzalez

Patrick Ryan

Eddie Sarfaty

Karen Schechner

S. Chris Shirley

Rachel Simon

Bob Smith

Jason Wells

Lambda Literary Board of Trustees

S. Chris Shirley, President · Susan Atkins, Vice-President

J. Michael Samuel, Treasurer ·  KG MacGregor, Secretary

Lisa Girolami, sj Miller, Jerome Murphy, Sandra Nathan

Denise Penn, John Rochester, Amy Scholder, Jan Zivic

About Lambda Literary:

Lambda Literary believes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer literature is fundamental to the preservation of our culture, and that LGBTQ lives are affirmed when our stories are written, published and read. LL’s programs include: the Lambda Literary Awards, the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, LGBTQ Writers in Schools, and our web magazine The Lambda Literary Review at http://www.LambdaLiterary.org. For more information call (323) 643-4281 or e-mail admin@lambdaliterary.org.

Join the conversation by following the Twitter hashtag #Lammys. Learn more at http://www.LambdaLiterary.org and connect with us on  facebook.com/LambdaLiterary and twitter.com/LambdaLiterary.

For more information:

Tony Valenzuela, Executive Director

Lambda Literary

5482 Wilshire Blvd, #1595

Los Angeles, CA 90036

323-643-4281 (Main)

323-376-6801 (Mobile)

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