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All posts in Bibliothèque

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She’s Shameless: E.J. MacBain

June 15, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

In the weeks leading up to the launch of She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back, we’ll be posting sneak peak excerpts from the book.

E.J. MacBain is a writer and editor living in the Northeast. Her nonfiction has previously appeared in Hip Mama magazine. She is the proud feminist mama of a toddler son and a baby daughter.

I’m Still Here
E.J. MacBain

1982: Roller skates with rainbow knee-highs, braided friendship bracelets wet to the skin, blueberry Slurpees all summer from 7-Eleven, John Cougar cassette tapes of “Jack and Diane,” the secret purple-clad, girls-only club, and threats from the older junior high school girls in the public library, who pretend that Crayola markers are boys’ mini-dicks and suck them to show us: This is what you have to do when you get to seventh grade.

My parents’ divorce, my mother’s suddenly-single freak-out, the parties with her divorcée jet set, and her new boyfriends, boyfriends, boyfriends, while I sat with my friends and wondered about the state of their parents’ love (and sex) lives and why the Girl Scout badges never fit, why I never graduated even from Brownies, and why all the boys loved all the girls who didn’t look a thing like me, Kate, Heather, or Eve with her wicked thoughts and her slumber parties that turned to late-night viewings of the porn channel’s Midnight Blue. What would Prince do? Who was Sheila E., and how could she be so sexy and play the drums? Why was the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue so titillating, and why did my Dad hide it? Were we the only ones who had to hunt so hard for soft-core porn?
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- Body Politics
Freedom to Choose

June 10, 2009 • Anna Leventhal

Reading the story posted below, I was struck by a couple of things. One is that although we hear a lot of reasons as to why women should have the freedom to choose what to do with our bodies, we don’t hear a lot of stories of actual women making that choice. At least not lately; I remember the good old days of Degrassi Junior High (1987), when Erica got pregnant and her decision to have an abortion sparked controversy and discussion - but at least it was out there. Why is it that we seem to have devolved since the 70s and 80s? Many women are afraid to talk about abortion, for fear of reprisal from anti-choice factions, or even just friends and family.

I’ve been living in a shed for the past two weeks at the Anchor Zine Archive and reading a lot of Doris zine by Cindy Crabb, and remembering just what an amazing writer she is. Her stories of her three abortions are frank and frankly empowering:

When I was pregnant I forced myself to look at the diagrams. Memorize the text instead of blocking it out. The eggs are formed in the ovaries, they go down the fallopian tubes… I only read it when no one was around. I locked the door and was jumpy and nervous, scared someone would catch me. I hid it like pornography.

It seemed almost cliche, but learning about my body and the changes going on in it, and knowing that it wasn’t out of control, it made me feel like my body was strong and mine. It was a way I’d never felt before.

The abortion itself wasn’t too bad. I had it done at a feminist health clinic and the women there took care of me the way it should be done. They held up a mirror, and that was the first time I’d seen those parts of me. They explained every touch and every second of the procedure. Now you’ll feel the speculum, this is the local anesthetic, you’ll feel some cramping now as she dilates the os, breathe deep.

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She’s Shameless: Amy Saxon-Bosworth

June 9, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

In the weeks leading up to the launch of She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back, we’ll be posting sneak peak excerpts from the book.

Amy Saxon Bosworth lives and writes from her home in the mountains outside of Nederland, Colorado. Her essays have been featured in Hearing Loss Magazine, Mamaphonic, and Hands and Voices. Her novella The Mean Time was a 2006 semi-finalist for Tin House’s Summer Literary Seminar, Kenya. Her writing was also included in the anthology My Baby Rides the Short Bus (PM Press, 2009). She is currently at work on her second novel.

I Don’t Wear Cloaks
by Amy Saxon Bosworth

When I was small, an older cousin coaxed me into sprinkling salt onto a slug in our grandfather’s English ivy garden. I watched with shame as the creature suffered and died. I remembered this as I sat against the gray cinder block wall on the cold gym floor of my high school one day after winter break. I could think of only the slug curled in my belly. I was sixteen years old.

I had made an appointment to have the little slug salted but changed my mind after a I saw a tiny tot at the rodeo, dressed in Wranglers and boots, wearing a starched white shirt. The tiny cowboy looked so precarious perched so high on his father’s shoulders, so fragile, so human. I tried to reconcile that with what moved within me. I made up my mind: the little slug would grow.
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She’s Shameless: Catherine Graham

May 31, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

In the weeks leading up to the launch of She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back, we’ll be posting sneak peak excerpts from the book. Our first post is Red Bars, by Catherine Graham.

Catherine Graham is the author of The Watch, Pupa, and The Red Element. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto, the Haliburton School of the Arts, and through the City of Burlington. Her work has been anthologized internationally and published in The New Quarterly, Literary Review of Canada, Taddle Creek and The Fiddlehead. You can find out more about her at www.catherinegraham.com

Red Bars
by Catherine Graham

I was sitting in the backseat, fingering the silver seatbelt, half-listening to Mom and her friend Eleanor. We were taking the back route, the safe route, to the mall, instead of the highway, so Mom wouldn’t make those sharp intakes of breath (no transport trucks to pass us). Still, she seemed high-strung, her mouth tight as she nodded in response to Eleanor’s yammering.

Start of another season of swim classes. I was trying for my Bronze Medallion this time round and my green Speedo left indents on my shoulders. Red bars.

With both hands on the wheel, Mom was oblivious to me watching her. I stared at the squiggles congregating on her nose, red like her hair.

Her hair had grown back soft and thin, in opposition to Eleanor’s coarse, black spikes.
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Teen writers wanted!

May 25, 2009 • Megan Griffith-Greene

We’re gearing up for the She’s Shameless launch party, but we need your help!

As part of the event, five teen writers will spend the afternoon in a focused workshop with acclaimed author and teacher Ibi Kaslik, working together on short creative pieces. That evening, they’ll take the stage and read their work, alongside some of the book’s contributors including Dianah Smith, Zoe Whittall and Shannon Gerrard.

We strongly encourage youth from all communities to apply, including women of colour, First Nations women, women with disabilities, and transgendered and queer-identified youth.

The event will take place on Tuesday, June 23 at the Gladstone.

If you’re a teen writer and you’d like to participate (or know someone who you’d like to recommend), I’d love to hear from you! Send me an e-mail at megan@shamelessmag.com.
She’s Shameless / She’s Writing: June 23rd

May 21, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

Save the date! She’s Shameless launches June 23rd in Toronto at The Gladstone Hotel! Join the facebook group here!

SHE’S SHAMELESS / SHE’S WRITING
Shameless magazine and This Is Not A Reading Series celebrates the launch of She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back

What media event five years ago transformed the lives of teenaged girls across North America? Here’s a clue: it had nothing to do with a boy wizard or the misadventures of trust fund brats. In June of 2004, Shameless, a magazine for “girls who get it”, first appeared on newsstands. We’ve assembled She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out, and fighting back (Tightrope Books). To celebrate the launch of the inaugural Shameless collection, such contributors as Zoe Whittall and Shannon Gerard will perform short pieces. Five teenaged girls will join them on-stage and present monologues from a writing workshop conducted that afternoon by acclaimed writer and teacher Ibi Kaslik. The evening will conclude with an early ‘90s-themed, Sadie Hawkins prom, featuring a noted local DJ. – A This is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Tightrope Books, Shameless, NOW Magazine, Gladstone Hotel and Take Five On CIUT.

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen St West, Toronto

Tues June 23; 8pm (doors 7:30pm) $5 (Free with Book Purchase)

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The Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19

May 11, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

A message from our Shameless friends at Coach House Books:

Coach House Books will launch its very first young adult novel with an event at the Toronto Public Library, and we hope you can join us to celebrate.

The Lillian H. Smith branch (239 College Street) will host the launch of author Jocelyn Brown’s The Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19. The Mitochondrial Curiosities is a crafty new take on the rites-of-passage novel. It follows fifteen-year-old Dree as she deals with the sudden death of her father, devises renegade craft projects, uncovers a few family mysteries and tries to find a way to pass Biology.

YA Book Launch for The Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19
featuring a reading and short craft workshop by author Jocelyn Brown

Thursday, May 21, 2009
Toronto Public Library, Lillian H. Smith Branch
239 College Street
7:00 p.m.
All ages!
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- News Flash
Amazon Declares Gay = Smut

April 12, 2009 • Michelle Schwartz

Amazon, already the scourge of small publishers and independent booksellers, has finally gone too far. No, I am not talking about the Kindle. That thing is just pointless. I am talking about Amazon’s new policy of labeling any and all LGBT printed matter as “Adult.” This policy strips the material of its sales rank, excluding it from bestseller lists and certain search results, and basically destroys its sales. This policy has not just been applied to erotica, but to general fiction, young adult novels, academic theory, political treatises, history books, dictionaries, and self-help books. Books that have not suffered the same fate include heterosexual romance novels by authors like Jackie Collins or even pornographic books published by Playboy.

Here is a constantly expanding list of books that have been stripped of their rank, classified as “Adult” for daring to contain mentions of the horrible, deviant behavior that is same sex love. Examples include classics such as Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Also marginalized are Brokeback Mountain, Stone Butch Blues, books by respected fiction authors like Sarah Waters and Christopher Isherwood, as well as non-fiction (and completely non-erotic) works by Kate Bornstein and Randy Shilts, including The Mayor of Castro Street, which certainly must have received a boost in sales after the release of the Oscar winning film, “Milk.”

Thank you Amazon, for first putting all my favorite bookstores out of business, and now trying to make it so that no one will ever publish LGBT books ever again. Because with profit margins tight and a terrible economy, why bother sinking money into a book that will never sell, because the largest bookseller in the world will declare it to be shameful porn and hide it on a dusty shelf behind a beaded curtain at the back of the store?

EDIT: Amazon has declared the de-ranking of almost all gay related titles to have been the result of a “computer glitch,” which is apparently what we get instead of an apology or an explanation. I think it is highly improbable that a simple “glitch” managed to somehow single out only titles that mention homosexuality in a positive light, but leave titles like A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality alone.

Pissed off about this new policy? Want an apology? Here’s what you can do:
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A Sneak Peek!

March 23, 2009 • Stacey May Fowles

Over a year in the making, Shameless magazine’s very first book is set to launch in Toronto on June 23rd. For now, here’s a sneak peek at the beautiful cover (care of our very talented Art Director Sheila Sampath). You can pre-order the book online here, or ask for it at your local independent book store when spring has sprung. More details to follow!

More details after the jump.

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- Bibliothèque
This is what oppression SOUNDS like call-out

March 16, 2009 • Cate Simpson

Today’s second literary announcement is for “This Is What Oppression SOUNDS Like” zine: “an underground zine for and by racialized and indigenous women to anonymously discuss the intersecting realities of race and gender in their lives.” It will be published in January, May and September.

The zine is looking for submissions from racialized and indigenous girls, young women and women. The first submission deadline is April 15, 2009. Digital submissions can be sent to hawa_mire@yahoo.ca. Physical artwork may be submitted by mail to:
859 Queens Ave.
Victoria, BC
Lekwungen Territory
V8T 4v8

When submitting, please note whether you consent to your piece being shown online as well as in print, and to the online version being opened up for comments.