Following Sarah Hepola’s devastating New York Times Magazine profile of Cat Marnell with empathy and queer theory, Jane Hu’s piece on what it means to read Marnell, to follow her and crave her work even as her work destroys her, merits reading and rereading.
Literary Bald Britney Spears
Boyhood
Over at The Rumpus, Brian Gresko argues that every writer, even cis men, should be openly discussing the complications of gender. As he puts it “Self-censorship is a twisted birthright passed down to boys by their fathers.”
Type In Your Own Handwriting
Galley Cat links to an online program that allows you to turn your handwriting into a computer font – so you can literally type in your own handwriting.
Writing Indifferently
How was Charlotte Brontë at 8? According to her school reports, she “‘[wrote] indifferently’ and ‘[knew] nothing of grammar, geography, history, or accomplishments”. Of course, she went on to write Jane Eyre, and as The Guardian points out, many a famous writer received middling reports in school, so maybe there’s hope for other “indifferent’ writers.
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Rooted
The term “regionalism” doesn’t have quite the lustre for poets that it does for fiction writers, yet poets undeniably reflect their roots in their work. In an essay, Sandra Beasley makes the case for embracing regionalism in the poetry world, citing Claudia Emerson as a model for profitably committing yourself to one place.
When Life Gives You Rob Ford, What More Do You Require?
PSA: Little Brother is releasing a special issue entitled Everything Is Fine. The kicker? The issue is dedicated to fiction about embattled Toronto mayor Rob Ford. (P.S. If you aren’t familiar with LB, it’s the magazine run by Millions Tumblr-er emeritus Emily M. Keeler.)
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Lots of Chutzpah
Recommended Reading: Here’s some helpful advice we all could use — how to raise a mensch: “Less obvious but equally central values that Marjorie Ingall highlights include having a healthy distrust of authority. Jews come from a vertiginously long tradition of ‘questioning, yammering, challenging and disputing,’ she writes. ‘The Talmud, the compendium of Jewish law, is pretty much a bunch of dudes contradicting one another. Each page is a big box of text in the middle, and wrapped around it like a frame is lots of ‘Wait, you think what?’ '”