Note to self: Never have children.

Second note to self: Never write private things down — ever.

These are just some new things I've picked up recently after learning that the late Susan Sontag's son will be publishing her personal diaries — her detailing of sexual discovery included.

Sontag was a prolific essayist whose relationship with photographer Annie Leibovitz was only really solidified publicly after her death. It was well-known and accepted that she was bisexual, but she kept most of her private life private, so something tells me she wouldn't be so excited to know that her journals are being made available.

Sontag kept diaries since she was a teenager, so the books will be published in three different volumes, beginning next January. The Independent reported that she discusses her sexuality frequently from an early age, including these excerpts:

Age 15: "I am very young, and perhaps the most disturbing aspects of my ambitions will be outgrown ... so now I feel I have lesbian tendencies (how reluctantly I write this)."

Age 16: "Perhaps I was drunk, after all, because it was so beautiful when H began making love to me .... It had been 4:00 before we had gotten to bed ... I became fully conscious that I desired her, she knew it, too...." … continue reading

Actress Mia Kirshner officially added “author” to her résumé this week with the Tuesday release of her first book, I Live Here. From the look on her face, she is as happy as we are that it's not Lez Girls.

Helping her celebrate the milestone in Los Angeles were some of her The L Word co-stars and assorted famous friends. They included out actress and castmate Leisha Hailey. Looks like Jenny and Alice have gotten over that little "Monet has come back from the dead"-spat.

And here's one for you Shenny fans out there. Kate Moennig showed up looking very Shane today, or possibly very Shane with a bit of a head cold today. … continue reading

Having a lesbian on the inside of any business is always good, but I find it particularly effective in the media (see: Rachel Maddow). When I found out New York Magazine writer Ariel Levy was playing for our team (back when she was an NPR contributor and the new author of Female Chauvinist Pigs), I was thrilled. A woman on the inside!

October has been good to Levy, who had a high-profile interview with Stephen Colbert as part of last week's New Yorker Festival. Despite his expected wit and jokes (such as referring to the feminist as having "a hot little bod"), Levy was a great interviewer and pulled out a lot of information from the famously funny personality.

An even greater accomplishment, though, is that Levy's story "The Lesbian Bride's Handbook" (from New York Magazine, April 23, 2007) is being featured in the newly published The Best American Essays 2008. The essay was a first-person narrative on her wedding to her partner, and how she had several obstacles to overcome, from what to wear (white?) and if it even constituted a "real" wedding. An excerpt from the piece (which can still be found online):

I am not a total idiot. I always had the sense to say no wedding cake, no officiant, no first dance, no here comes the bride, no Times announcement, and absolutely no white dress. Who are we kidding? And why? We just wanted a big, awesome party where everyone could meet and go bananas. It’s a special opportunity, you know: The only other time everyone you love will assemble in one place is at your funeral. (At most weddings, some people you don’t actually love will also be in attendance.But the silver lining of my parents’ being irreverent and Amy’s parents’ being in denial is that we didn’t have to invite anyone we didn’t want to.)

The thing is, though, you have to serve something, and you can’t very well go naked. You can call it a party about love all you want, but you still have to make all the same decisions that every other bride has to make, and you have to make them very carefully unless you want everyone you know to schlep to some crummy party in the middle of nowhere.

The comical piece should strike a chord with any gay woman who ever considered the idea of a ceremony celebrating "till death do us part." And to the straight people who buy The Best American Essays 2008 and read Levy's account, take a good look at how non-Bridezilla lesbians are. Seriously, we're the least of your problems. … continue reading

Graphic artist Alison Bechdel and former Sleater-Kinney member/ current NPR contributor Carrie Brownstein are among 50 writers who have contributed to the new book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America. Each state was assigned to someone who was its byproduct. (Bechdel took on Vermont; Brownstein wrote on Washington.)

Though Brownstein now lives in Portland, Ore., all of the Pacific Northwest remains her home and her loving approach to its three-dimensionality (what, it does more than rain?) has left readers with an enlightened view of Washington — and that's exactly what editors Sean Wilsey and Matt Weiland intended. They recently praised both women's work in an interview with Powells.com:

Sean Wilsey: Her portrait of the Northwest helps you understand it in a different way. I never had much of an understanding of how much trees influence everybody up there, and mud and moss.
Matt Weiland: And it speaks to something general throughout the book, which is how weather informs character. How place informs character. Yes, most people know that it's rainy in the Northwest, but Carrie's piece speaks to a deeper truth, not just that it's rainy but how it affects the people living there, how it affects their view.

Bechdel's approach to Vermont was, of course, a little different. Instead of an essay, she did an illustration in the form of a map. … continue reading

When I watched Big and Carrie decide to rekindle their dysfunctional relationship on the last episode of Sex and the City in 2004, I wiped the tears from my face and came to terms with the fact that I would no longer know what was going on in the lives of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte.

That did not turn out to be the case.

It seems the Sex and the City phenomenon isn’t going anywhere — especially after the recent news that Sex scribe Candace Bushnell will write a young adult series about Carrie’s teen years, aptly titled The Carrie Diaries.

The closest we’ve come to Carrie’s high school years on the show was the return of her first boyfriend (played by an institutionalized David Duchovny) and her disturbing, yet realistic reference to losing her virginity (“Eleventh grade. Seth Bateman. His smelly rec room. Half a joint, three thrusts, finito.”)

Bushnell’s deal with publisher HarperCollins includes two young adult novels (so far) that will take readers through Carrie’s teenage years, some of which will be spent in a yet-to-be-determined suburb and some, of course, in Manhattan. … continue reading

I know that Mia Kirshner is not Jenny Schecter. I am able to distinguish fact from fiction. I rarely blur the lines between reality and fantasy (except in my most uninhibited, sweaty dreams involving Dara Torres and the U.S. Olympic women's soccer team). Yet, when I first heard that Mia had written a book, I recoiled in horror. Oh, God, not those angsty floating words. Sweet fancy moses, not the confusing carnival of shame. Please, for the love of all that is good, save us from the masturbatory opus!

And then, I remembered to breath and relaxed. Mia is not Jenny. Her book is not Lez Girls. Instead, The L Word actress has written the travelogue I Live Here, which will be published Oct. 14 by Pantheon Books.

Mia's debut novel is described as a “paper documentary” done with the collaboration of graphic novelist Joe Sacco, writer J.B. MacKinnon and graphic designers Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons. The book chronicles Mia's seven years of travel across the globe and the devastation she has seen. Part diary, part graphic novel, I Live Here spans the war in Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in Burma, globalization in Mexico and AIDS in Malawi. … continue reading

Oh, J.K. Rowling, no one in the world loves you more than I do.

OK, maybe your husband and your children love you a lot — but aside from those guys, I love you most.

When I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, oh, how I cried, and cheered, and laughed, and loved you. When Dumbledore bequeathed Hermione the wizarding children's book The Tales of Beedle the Bard, I hoped in my soul that one day you would write that book, and not just use it as a plot device — especially the tale of Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump.

Well, you did write it, but you only made seven copies. Seven hand-written, hand-illustrated copies, by you, J.K. Rowling, whom I love. You gave six of those books to the people "most intimately involved with the phenomenally successful [Harry Potter] series," and the seventh copy of Tales of the Beedle Bard, you auctioned off at Sotheby's for your charity, The Children's High Level Group. It fetched £1.95 million!

A lot of people chastised you, J.K. Rowling, for not making that book available to your fans, but I defended you, as I always have, because I love you. I said, "Back off, punks! J.K. Rowling is the cleverest, kindest, most precious woman in the world!" I told them about your 2006 trip to Romania, about how you visited children's institutions and spoke out against the use of cage beds and child-trafficking. I told them how you were using your powers for good, just like a superhero should. I looked at the Associated Press photograph of you reaching through the bars of a crib to touch an abandoned child, and I knew I would never stop standing up for you. … continue reading

Are you a fan of Emily the Strange?

If you are, then you should get ready to see more of her. The New York Daily News published a long interview with Rob Reger, the California-based artist who first put Emily on a T-shirt back in 1991. Since then, the character has appeared in her own books and comics, as well as on merchandise such as clothing, accessories, toys, school supplies and calendars. And according to the Daily News piece, Emily is getting ready to branch out further, with a series of four young adult novels from HarperCollins written in her voice, a video game, and a feature film all in the works.

Although I’ve never really been a comics reader, and at this point I’m a bit older than the market that Emily is aimed at, I can’t help identifying somewhat with a character who appears like this:

With her four cats and her outcast status, I also wonder if Emily might have a particular appeal for lesbians. In the interview, Reger talks about her counterculture credentials:

“This character is very different from the typical Barbie Doll type that society seems to encourage in girls. […] Emily is often misinterpreted as a negative or plain old bad girl. To me, she's more of an icon for the think-for-yourself, do-it-yourself movement. That's the whole notion that it's okay to not follow mainstream ideas of what's cool, attractive or fun. And it's not only OK to be different, it's better! We want to communicate that you don't have to have a lot of money or certain material things, or fit in with the in-crowd; it's totally cool to do your own thing. In fact, you probably will get more out of life by being imaginative and figuring out your own way of seeing things.

When I first saw Emily, the thing that really interested me was not her Wednesday Addams vibe, but the fact that she reminded me of Emily Byrd Starr in Anne of Green Gables author L. M. Montgomery’s Emily books. Did anyone else read those? Although I very much doubt that Reger has read them or was inspired by them, the similarities are striking. Pale face: tick. Black hair: tick. Bang across the forehead: tick (there’s that great scene where Emily defies her stern Aunt Elizabeth in order to cut a bang). And the love of cats and alienation from mainstream society are in Montgomery’s books, too. … continue reading

Back in 1988, when the general consensus was that artists only made independent records because they couldn’t get a major label deal, Juliana Hatfield and her band the Blake Babies started a run that produced four indie releases. Then, she got signed to Atlantic and entered the ‘90s with a string of slightly more mainstream hits like “My Sister,” which, even though I loved my sister, seemed like a good thing to blast from my bedroom speakers while I went through my “various phases” phase in high school.

Remember when she appeared on My So-Called Life as some sort of angelic character? It just kind of seemed like Juliana Hatfield’s music was at every turn of my pre-coming-out pubescence. Her sweet, subtle soprano sang out over those introspective indie-rock tunes, back when it was called alt-rock. I eventually became distracted by the whole riot grrl thing and moved on, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Hatfield’s work.

Over the past several years, she’s gone indie again, and has been releasing albums on her own. Of course, now putting out an indie record is a whole different (some would say easier) ball of wax than it was 20 years ago, in the heyday of Blake Babies. Still, Hatfield’s work continues to garner praise from fans and critics alike. Hers is a pretty good story, especially in a time when it seems almost impossible to imagine a major label act sticking in the business for 20 years. … continue reading

Jennifer Weiner – I’d hate her if I didn’t love her

I’m not a chick lit fan. I have no objection on principle. I mean, I’ve certainly read my share of the lesbian equivalent – you know, those read-it-in-one-sitting novels that used to be published by Naiad Press. And, seriously, how can I take issue with the genre that gave us Miranda Priestly?

But my lack of enthusiasm for the chick lit cult aside, I am a true fan of one of its high priestesses, Jennifer Weiner.

My love of Weiner (OK, I often think like a 12-year-old boy, too, but it’s pronounced “Wine-er”) started on a lazy Sunday afternoon of watching movies, one of which was In Her Shoes.

I know the movie isn’t universally loved, but I enjoyed it enough to Google for more information. I learned that In Her Shoes originally was a book by Jennifer Weiner, so I hopped over to her site and began browsing. My crush started here:

“March, 2005: Jen attends a screening of ‘In Her Shoes’ in Los Angeles. Determined not to make a complete fool of herself, Jen holds it together for the first ten seconds, then bursts into tears the instant the Fox logo flashes on-screen.” … continue reading

I remember my first visit to an independent bookstore. This was after slinking around the library in my small hometown for any gay/lesbian material and coming up with The Well of Loneliness. Walking into Dreams and Swords in downtown Indianapolis, Ind., with my first girlfriend was like walking into an alternate universe. One subtitled “Feminist Family Bookstore.” And for the first time in my life I could walk into a gay and lesbian room, instead of sneaking over to leaf through one or two queer books tucked into a corner of shame. That day I bought my first book by an out lesbian author: Zami by Audre Lorde.

Dreams and Swords went the way of too many independent bookstores over the past 15 years, casualties of the age of Wal-Mart and online retailers who can sell at 20 percent below retail price. Unfortunately, during the beginning of this year, D.C. area communities have to bid farewell to an African-American community institution, Karibu books. As the stores close its doors, African-American writers and audiences (and anybody who appreciates generally excellent writing) are losing a community icon. Karibu was one of the largest Afro-centric bookstores in the U.S., with the slogan ‘‘books by and about African people, 365 days a year.” … continue reading