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- Arts
- Bibliothèque
J.D. Salinger: His “recluse” status and women

February 11, 2010 • Jenna Owsianik

(via flickr user masaaki miyara)

Over two weeks have passed since the death of mystified literary icon, J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye and creator of its angst-ridden and much-loved antihero Holden Caulfield. Headlines and obituaries emphasize Salinger’s reclusive and secretive lifestyle, mentioning diehard fans’ wild goose chases for the man in his small town of Cornish, New Hampshire.

Although Mikki Halpin at Salon.com says she understands the appeal to see Salinger as a “higher intellect who has rejected it all,” she also finds this portrait of him “curious,” suggesting it conveniently bars the public from facing some uneasy assertions about the late writer’s relationships with women.

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- Bibliothèque
- Food Fight
How It All Vegan 10th Anniversary Edition: Even More Delicious!

September 24, 2009 • Desirée O

It’s no secret that I adore Sarah Kramer and her amazing vegan cookbooks. I’ve profiled her pocket-sized Vegan A Go-Go and interviewed her for my Shameless Women column. Now the 10th Anniversary Edition of How It All Vegan has been released and it’s better than ever!

Ten years after its first release HIAV is still one of the most popular vegan cookbooks around and a staple of any vegan cook’s kitchen.

I had the chance to interview co-author Sarah Kramer about the success of the book, the continuing rise in veganism, and even tried a few recipes from my very own treasured copy of How It All Vegan 10th Anniversary Edition (check out a pic of the results below).

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- All About Shameless
- Bibliothèque
Shameless issue #13 is finally here!

August 14, 2009 • Megan Griffith-Greene

Our long-anticipated issue #13 is finally here!

Now hitting newsstands and mailboxes near you!

Inside:
* Cut your own hair! Our love letter to DIY, plus some great projects to get you started
* Unpack before you pack! What you need to know before volunteering abroad
* The history and politics of hoodies
* The skinny on the word “skinny”
* Why campus radio is an important feminist space
* Why boys need a Shameless of their own
plus comics, reviews and more!
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Youth These Days: The Scream Youth Workshop

July 7, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

The 2009 Scream Literary Festival Presents
Youth These Days: The Scream Youth Workshop
Sunday, July 12th, 2009 – 1 pm
The Loop Studio at Wychwood Barns
601 Christie Street, Toronto
Cost: PWYC

The book may be dead, but words aren’t. What’s old is new again —
narrative hip hop music is a dynamic occurrence of a thriving oral
literary tradition. Led by hip hop artist Paul Sackichand and professional
storyteller Rico Rodriguez, the Scream’s youth workshop provides an
opportunity to learn how to add suspense to your rhymes and rhythm to your
stories—participants will get to create, as well as perform, their own
narrative raps.
She’s Shameless on BlogTO!

July 5, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

There’s a great write-up of the She’s Shameless launch and an interview with editor Megan Griffith-Greene, posted on BlogTO:
When I was a kid there was Chickadee magazine and then Owl, and then the thinking girl was unceremoniously dumped off the science train of the Mighty Mites, and into the world of Tiger Beat.

“Maybe you can think big thoughts again when you’re older,” the magazine rack seemed to say. “But the teen and pre-teen magazines that tide you over until then will be wholly populated by doe-eyed boys, glossy ads for lip gloss, and vanilla-flavoured sex tips. Be prepared for a solid decade where your interests are presumed limited to bangles and boyfriends.”

Then 2004 rolled around, and a Canadian upstart broke through these piles and piles of flippant frou frou and frizz — Shameless, a magazine “for girls who get it.”

Read the entire post here.

(L-R) She's Shameless on sale now, Teen Workshop Leader and celebrated author Ibi Kaslik, Megan signs books. Image via BlogTO.

Also, check out coverage and a great photoset of the event on Newsfix:
She’s Shameless, a compilation from emerging and established female writers, shares honest, intimate, sometimes embarrassing stories about growing up. Edited by Stacey May Fowles and Megan Griffith-Greene, the magazine’s publisher and editor-in-chief, this book talks about things most people experienced in their teenage lives but were too ashamed to speak up about.

The anthology is in bookstores now, so you can order or buy it from your local independent, ask for it at your local library, or get it online here or here.
- Bibliothèque
- Media Savvy
A Room of One’s Own Redux?

June 25, 2009 • Mir Verburg

Author Virgina Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is an eloquent argument in support of the idea that a woman, should she want to pursue her own dreams and goals, must have a measure of financial and material independence.

For Woolf this was because:

Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog’s chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one’s own. (Full essay here)

(If you have not taken the time to read this brilliant but dense essay I urge you to do it. It is a great argument, although long.)

So it was surprising to me to read the headline “Females who rent weigh less”. The subhead? “Home-owning women outweigh their renting counterparts by an average of 12 pounds.” That’s right ladies, do not try to own property - you may think it leads to a greater degree of financial security, and thus more social power and control over your life circumstance, but in fact it just makes you fat. And we all know fat, stressed out, property-owning ladies are not as good as skinny, care-free, renting ladies.

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She’s Shameless Launches Tonight!

June 23, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

She’s Shameless launches TONIGHT in Toronto!

SHE’S SHAMELESS / SHE’S WRITING
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen St West, Toronto
Tues June 23; 8pm (doors 7:30pm) $5 (or free with book purchase)
With readings from Dianah Smith, Shannon Gerard, Zoe Whittall and Shannon Webb-Campbell.

Prom and anti-prom attire encouraged!

Here’s what people are already saying about She’s Shameles:

“An offshoot of the self-described, ‘fiercely independent’ Shameless magazine, She’s Shameless is an anthology that boasts an array of autobiographical accounts taken from the lives of female writers, thinkers, and activists who have learned to be unashamed of themselves and the paths their lives have taken. Body image, teen pregnancy, sexual discovery and creative pursuits are all fair game for conversation in these poignantly honest firsthand narrations of PoMo coming-of-age.”
-Kelli Korducki, This Magazine

“Cautionary tales abound — a pregnant 16-year-old contemplates, then rejects, abortion; a fourth-grader’s French teacher peers down her shirt; a virginity is lost to a slimy married father twice her age — but that’s not the point….Young women are rarely ever heard from in society. It’s adults, often men, that are invited on TV to wring their hands about teen-girl crises (pregnancy, anorexia, depression, promiscuity) and asked how to ‘fix’ these problems…Grow up, be smart, take responsibility, teens are told — but in practice they’re not often given that agency, which is what makes She’s Shameless remarkable. The essays neither condone nor condemn; some are full of regret, but the contributors’ bios tell of eventual successes — writers are ‘proud feminist mamas,’ university graduates, artists.”
-Canice Leung, Metro

Read an interview with Stacey May Fowles at Open Book Toronto, an interview with Megan Griffith-Greene at Masthead Online, and an interview with Ibi Kaslik at Pages Books and Magazines.

Many thanks to Tightrope Books, NOW Magazine, and Pages Books and Magazines.

See you tonight!
She’s Shameless: Shaunga Tagore

June 18, 2009 • Stark Koenig

In the time leading to the launch of She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back, we have been posting excerpts from the book on our blog. To accompany these excerpts we are including some Q&As with contributors to She’s Shameless.

Shaunga Tagore is a self-proclaimed singer-songstress, warrior-poet, gangsta-feminist, extreme-ranter-queen, lover-fighter, soul-sista-diva, who dreams of a world without hierarchies and categories, and watches Buffy in her spare time.

What does feminism mean to you? How did you come to call yourself a feminist?

I am a feminist because I have a lot of hurt inside of me. For most of my life I believed that this hurt – caused by violences such as racism and sexism – was just a normal and natural part of who I am. Learning about feminism, or coming to understand the way systems of oppression impact individuals, groups, or societies, has provided me with a way to make sense of my internalized hurt, to recognize it is there but to realize that it doesn’t really belong inside of me. In that sense feminism is a source of healing. Feminism has also given me a way to think about my privileges, and attempt to take action and responsibility against injustices that I witness in this world I share with others.

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Metro Shows Us Some Love

June 18, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

The lovely Canice Leung gives She’s Shameless some love in today’s edition of Metro:

As a high-schooler, I spewed my emotions into a well-guarded journal. In English class, I read Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own. (Her theory: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.”) I wondered if self-reflection was my own rite of passage — a notion explored in She’s Shameless, an anthology to be released next week by Shameless, a Toronto-based alt-magazine for young women.

The essays are honest, but as co-editors Stacey May Fowles and Megan Griffith-Greene wrote in the book’s introduction, “This is not an after-school special.”

The voices of young women are rarely heard. Adults, often men, are invited on TV to wring their hands about teen-girl crises and asked how to “fix” these problems. This is what makes She’s Shameless remarkable. The essays neither condone nor condemn; some contributors display regret, but their bios tell of eventual successes as “proud feminist mamas,” university graduates, artists.

Canice Leung is a former editor of Ryerson University feminist magazine McClung’s, copy editor at Metro, ardent feminist and loudmouth.

Read the entire review here.
It has arrived!

June 17, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

She’s Shameless is fresh off the printer and will be across Canada in bookstores shortly. We’d like to take this moment to sincerely thank all of our wonderful contributors who made this book such a fantastic project. We hope you’ll enjoy reading their courageous and exciting contributions as much as we enjoyed working with them! We’d also like to thank the wonderful folks at Tightrope Books for being supportive of the project from day one.

If you’re in Toronto, you can already pick up your very own advance copy from Pages Books and Magazines. (We also encourage you to order the book from your local independent book store.)

And don’t forget the official launch, our first ever Prom/Anti-Prom, next Tuesday at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. We’ll be featuring contributors from the book, alongside some teen writing superstars, in a fun-filled night celebrating all our favourite shameless women and girls!

She’s Shameless / She’s Writing: June 23rd

She’s Shameless launches June 23rd in Toronto at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto!
SHE’S SHAMELESS / SHE’S WRITING

Shameless magazine, This Is Not A Reading Series and Tightrope Books celebrate the launch of She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back
Featuring contributions from Zoe Whittall, Emily Pohl-Weary, Julia Serano, Dianah Smith, Shannon Gerard, and many more.

(more inside…)