I saw Danez Smith perform Waiting On You To Die So I Can Be Myself on facebook, and that sealed it: I requested off work so I could go to their reading at the Northfield Public Library last night. I'd seen and read a few other poems that also resonated with me, and I went … Continue reading Recommended Reading: Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
Janelle Monáe. Janelle Monáe. Janelle Monáe! I'm all about PROJECT Q.U.E.E.N. Janelle Monáe is the hera I've needed my whole life. The songs and videos exist to be read. She speaks up and out, for all of us. I love her so much. I like this list of her videos on youtube. And yes, "Make … Continue reading Recommended Listening/Viewing/Reading: Janelle Monáe is EVERYTHING
Just look at that cover! Two years ago, I started searching harder for books I knew must exist, but that I hadn't been told to read. Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor did exactly what I was craving at the time: put humans and the rest of nature on equal footing. I cried reading the first chapters; … Continue reading Recommended Reading: Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
So what if all the unspoken rules and expectations for women under patriarchy were instead codified into law? That's the world Johanna Sinisalo imagined in The Core of the Sun, and I was completely blown away by this novel. I felt like it described exactly the world I was born into and must navigate. I … Continue reading Recommended Reading: The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo
Liberation never comes from oppressing someone else, and this anthology has everything you need to really get started learning about the lives and realities of others and thinking about how to make the world a better place for all of us. When I finally picked up This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women … Continue reading Recommended Reading: This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
I'm usually late to the party on new books, but hey, Kingdom of Women by Rosalie Morales Kearns just came out a few months ago, so you can read it and be fashionably late to the party, and what a party it is! People are HUNGRY for this novel, some of us were starving for … Continue reading Recommended Reading: Kingdom of Women by Rosalie Morales Kearns
So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan was the sweetest well of water when I was dying of thirst in the desert. I went looking for this book and others like it, and when I got it from super inter-library loan, I was blown away. I … Continue reading Recommended Reading: So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy
I've been thinking A LOT about Erasure by Percival Everett lately. Everything is so complicated, and so much is lost when people don't educate themselves about the big picture. It's great that some publishers and editors are actively seeking diverse voices. It's awful when they start telling writers that they need to be MORE X, … Continue reading Recommended Reading: Erasure by Percival Everett
N.K. Jemisin is currently my favorite author. Hands down. After the awful 2016 election with all its attendant harms and the visibility of so many incorrect, aching, angry people, I had to ask myself about the stories we tell. The stories we tell either open up possibilities, or shut them down. They tell us what … Continue reading Recommended Reading: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
I've started a page for Recommended Reading, and the text that follows is the initial text on that page. I also want to make regular posts under the title "Recommended Reading: X" in order to make it easier for people to see recs as they come up and search for them on my site without … Continue reading Recommended Reading: #PulseOrlandoSyllabus & An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
harmony is a witch 