“My parents really don’t like that book. It embarrassed and saddened them and they didn’t understand why I would air my dirty laundry in public. They’ve had some time to sit with it and now they’re more supportive of what I do as a memoirist. I think they see the value of telling your story now. It’s still a tender subject and I wouldn’t say that they exactly love the book now, but at least it’s an open dialogue.” Jillian Lauren speaks on the cost of telling one’s truth publicly and her memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem. Pair with a piece by our own Michael Bourne on the art and business of memoirs.
Cost of the Memoir
Conversations over Stolen Food (in Illicit Spaces)
The Faster Times offers up a new dialogue from dynamic duo Jon Cotner & Andy Fitch’s “Conversations over Stolen Food,” which seamlessly segues from Astroglide and Fung Wah buses to Alaskan Brown Bears, and includes a run-in with New York Park Patrol. Images by Paper Monument editor Dushko Petrovich are added eye candy.
What to Believe In
Recommended Reading: Rene Denfeld and Stephanie Feldman on the line between realism and fantasy in their debut novels.
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Women Writers’ Firsts
Over at Ploughshares, reflect on eight women writers’ accomplishments spanning twenty-six centuries. For more impressive writing by women, read Edan Lepucki and Meaghan O’Connell’s discussion of David Copperfield.
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Annals of great profile writing
If you’re looking for some midweek longreads, here are two excellent profile pieces: Emily Nussbaum‘s unabashed enthusiasm for Lena Dunham as HBO’s Girls gears up for release, and Adam Sternbergh on Mark Leyner, whose The Sugar Frosted Nutsack is out today.
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Reading Under the Influence
In general, it’s not much fun to read a book you don’t feel like reading — especially if that book is Antigone, you’re on Dexedrine, and you are Marilyn Monroe.
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Runways for Days
“I took my son to Paris fashion week, and all I got was a profound understanding of who he is, what he wants to do with his life, and how it feels to watch a grown man stride down a runway wearing shaggy yellow Muppet pants.” Michael Chabon writes a beautiful piece for GQ about going couturing with his son, Abraham. Pair with yesterday’s essay by R. J. Hernández on fashion in literary fiction.
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Celebrating, Not Sanitizing, Complicated Women Writers
“Somehow, in my eagerness to honor these words, I’d tamed the political intentions behind their meaning. I’d reduced my icon’s truths into affirmational pick-me-ups rather than letting them sink deeper.” Dianca Potts reflects on how to best to appreciate the fullness of Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison. We need to resist erasing their complexities in our haste to embrace them as icons or reduce them to inspirational quotes.
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