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Amy Kurzweil is a writer and cartoonist. Her cartoons, comics, and prose have appeared in The New Yorker, New Yorker Daily Shouts, The Believer, The Toast, Spiralbound and Longreads, among others. She is the author of the graphic memoir Flying Couch, about her Jewish identity, her Holocaust-survivor grandmother, and inherited trauma. For more information follow her on Instagram or support her on Patreon. 

Amy is teaching a free Zoom Toon class this Sunday, October 11^th, at 2pm PT/5pm EST. Register here to join!

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With everything going on I completely failed to mention that I published this essay in the spring 2020 issue of Nobles Magazine. I loved interviewing artists Caroline Harrison, Gabriela Herman, and Kimberly Nguyen and getting to write about their careers and work. Read it in print in the spring 2020 issue or via Issu.

The post “The Few, The Mighty” in Nobles Magazine! appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Sasha Geffen is a writer based in Denver whose work appears in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NPR, The Nation, and others. Their first book, Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary, about the history of pop music as a vessel for gender nonconformity, was published by the University of Texas Press in April 2020.

(Also, fun fact: E.B. and Sasha went to high school together.)

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I cannot tell you how excited I am to have an interview with Nina MacLaughlin up on The Believer Logger today. Nina has been a role model and inspiration to me since I first met her in spring 2015, right before the debut of her memoir, Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter. It was such a pleasure to talk to Nina about her new book Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung, which was published this past fall by FSG Originals. Thank you to Hayden Bennett at The Believer for his edits and for publishing the interview, and thank you to Nina for letting me ask her a million questions and for giving such thoughtful responses. I hope you enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it. Here’s the opening:

“THESE STORIES HAVE BEEN EXISTING IN ME ALL ALONG, LIKE HOW THEY EXIST IN ALL OF US, WHETHER WE KNOW IT OR NOT.”

Nina MacLaughlin and I went to the same high school, but not at the same time. She graduated nine years ahead of me—long enough that we didn’t overlap as students, but short enough that we shared many of the same teachers and experiences. Nina and I speak a common language—that of two people who both grew up in the suburbs of Boston, who both attended a New England prep school, who both studied a dead language, who both have spent their adult lives in Cambridge, who both love books and plants and art, who are both working writers.

Up until recently, Nina and I also had in common the fact that we both only write nonfiction—she is the author of Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, a memoir about her decision to leave journalism (Nina wrote for The Boston Phoenix for almost a decade) and pursue carpentry. But I arrive at her Cambridge apartment—located on the first floor of an old brick building, a former Harvard dormitory—to chat with Nina not about writing what she calls “true books,” but about another kind of true writing: fiction.

Nina is the author of Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung, a modern retelling of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, published this fall by FSG Originals. Sure, it’s not nonfiction—but what is this book? A short story collection? A series of vignettes? An epic poem? A historical novel? Fan fiction? I arrive at Nina’s flustered from the extraordinarily hot August day—having walked the fifteen minutes to her apartment from my own, because we are neighbors, too—and also from the fact that talking about fiction is out of my usual comfort zone.

I trip on an uneven floorboard in the vestibule of Nina’s building—the same spot where I tripped entering Nina’s place for a housewarming party several years ago—but I catch myself. Nina and I exchange a sweaty hug, and she welcomes me in, offers a ginger beer, and I take a seat on her couch behind a beautiful wooden coffee table, handmade by Nina from a board from her grandmother’s house. Nina arranges herself in a chair across from me, her legs tucked up under a billowing skirt, and I wonder if we are still part of the same world.

—E.B. Bartels

Read the interview with Nina here.

Also, never forget:

Bojack Horseman (season 5).

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Audrey Murray is a redhead from Boston who moved to China and became a standup comedian. The co-founder of Kung Fu Komedy, Audrey was named the funniest person in Shanghai by City Weekend magazine. Audrey is a staff writer for Reductress.com and a regular contributor at Medium.com; her writing has also appeared in McSweeney’s, LitHub, LARB, The Gothamist, Paste Magazine, Narratively, China Economic Review, Nowness, Architizer, and on the wall of her dad’s office. Audrey has appeared on NPR and The Comedy Center: Live from the Table; the Lost in America, Listen to This!, and Shanghai Comedy Corner podcasts; and on CNN, RTN, and ICS. She recently published her first memoir, Open Mic Night in Moscow. Follow her on Twitter at @ACMwrites.

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Sarah Dickenson Snyder is poet based in Massachusetts and Vermont. She is the author of The Human Contract (Kelsay Books, 2017) and the chapbook Notes From A Nomad (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Snyder’s poetry and prose have appeared in Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Comstock Review, Damfino Press, Chautauqua, West Trade Review, The Main Street Rag, and Passager, among other magazines and anthologies. In May of 2016, she was a 30/30 Poet for Tupelo Press, and she has been selected to be part of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In addition to writing poetry, Snyder worked as an English teacher for thirty-seven years.

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Nina MacLaughlin is the author of Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, a memoir about her transformation from journalist to carpenter. After spending her twenties as a staff writer at the award-winning alternative newsweekly the Boston Phoenix, in 2008 MacLaughlin quit her job to work as a carpenter’s assistant. Eight years later, MacLaughlin continues to pursue both building and writing. Her reviews and essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, The Rumpus, The Millions, and Bookslut, among other places, and she has been a guest on All Things Considered. MacLaughlin also writes a blog called Carpentrix. She lives near the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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I was interviewed by The Nobleman! As the former Editor-in-Chief of the Nobles literary arts magazine, Calliopé, I was a little uneasy at first about talking with our rival publication, but it was actually a blast. Check it out.

Shout out to my interviewer, William Wang ’16, for asking such great questions. I even had to write a dog haiku on the spot.

The post Interview with The Nobleman appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

In case you have forgotten and have no idea what I’m going on about: My goal for 2015 is to read 50 books by women, with the majority of those by women of color.

In terms of numbers, 75% of 50 is 37.5 books, and by the last day of September I had read only 34. Luckily, this weekend I didn’t have much going on, so I got to practice my favorite Saturday morning pastime of drinking coffee in bed while reading, and I finished a few things I had been reading simultaneously and brought things up to 37.

You see, not only did I start working full-time at a school this fall which leaves me a) with significantly less time for personal reading and b) pretty wiped out when I try to read before bed a.k.a. fall asleep with a book on my face, but I also got sidetracked reading a really awesome but really long novel (a casual 592 pages), plus I had to read two books over the summer for work that were by men, so that took time away from my ladies. (Men! Ruining everything! Typical!) I’ve decided to try to bring up my numbers by taking time to appreciate some great graphic novels/memoirs, plays, and poetry by women.

So, without further ado, here’s what I’ve read since my 1st Quarter and 2nd Quarter Check-In:

27. She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan: Last I left you I was on page number five of Boylan’s memoir and already had a good feeling about it. The remaining 283 only got better. Boylan is an incredible memoirist––conversational, thoughtful, accessible, and funny as hell. She leaves you reflecting on your own life and also the entire world, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this book for weeks and weeks after I finished it. Definitely read it! Though I may be biased… I got to interview Jennifer Finney Boylan for my Non-Fiction by Non-Men column on Fiction Advocate, and I think she is the bee’s knees.

28. Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen, and Shannon Watters: File this under books that I wish had been around when I was a teenager. A thoroughly fun read, Lumberjanes follows a group of friends at Miss Quinzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. I loved that the graphic novel is all about friendship between girls and that it puts queer girls, girls of color, and not traditionally feminine girls at the center. (No sexy Wonder Woman outfits in this series!) The diversity of the characters shows the many ways there are to be a girl in the world, and each girl brings her own personality, style, background, talents, and flair to the group. Every adventure they have is only possible because of the power of their differences and their unity. I think this series perfectly executes the Audre Lorde mantra of how, in a group, our differences shouldn’t be divisive, but they should make us stronger.

29. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde: Oh, hey, speaking of Audre Lorde, as I promised I would in my 2nd Quarter Check-In, I went and read more Audre Lorde, and I love, love, LOVED Zami. (Thanks for the recommendation, Cris Beam!) In her poetic, story-telling style, Lorde goes through the history of her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. She perfectly balances that mix of adult-in-the-present-looking-back and child-wonder-and-confusion-in-the-moment. Zami is an exemplary memoir, plus it has all that great Lorde feminist ideology tucked into it as well. Just go read it. Right now. Stop reading my blog and go get a copy of Zami, okay?

30. OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu: Haydu is another Nobles graduate (class of 2001!) and young adult author. While reading OCD Love Story this summer, all I could think about was how badly I needed this book when I was a kid. The story follows a teenage girl, Bea, as she battles chronic anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, while she also deals with a huge crush on a boy, Beck, whom she meets in group therapy. Haydu is masterful in her portray of mental illness and anxiety. She manages to bring awareness to the issues, lay out clearly what they are, and give a very powerful experience of what it’s like to cope with anxiety on a daily basis, but this is also not a Book About Mental Illness. It’s also a goofy, fun, teenage love story with all that good ol’ adolescent drama, which really hammers home the point that people are more than their mental illnesses. Anxiety, depression, OCD, all that––it’s just like someone having to manage diabetes or arthritis or hearing loss. It shouldn’t define who you are, and you shouldn’t be afraid of people with a mental illness. Haydu’s book tackles that concept head-on. It’s great. Read it. Unless maybe you yourself suffer from anxiety and OCD… sometimes Haydu’s portray of what it’s like to live with anxiety was a little too real for me… Also, trivia: Haydu has written a stage adaptation of OCD Love Story, which will be performed by students at Nobles this fall!

31. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston: I also promised in my 2nd Quarter Check-In that I would read more stuff by Kingston, and I was not in the least disappointed by The Woman Warrior. In fact, I may even like it more than China Men, because I’m partial to narratives about multiple generations of women, but also because Kingston was so much more present in this memoir. Again, she blends family legend and cultural commentary and global history and myth and fairy tale all into one magnificent thing. I’m obsessed.

32. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison: This is Morrison’s most recent book, and it is her first novel to take place in a contemporary time. It’s a riveting story, fast-paced and engaging, and Morrison’s commentary on the modern United States is fascinating. However, I was frustrated by the length of the novel. It felt like it ended too soon, and I kept thinking about loose ends that I wish had been addressed. Morrison’s characters are complex, and I was so intrigued by their stories that I was annoyed when I didn’t get to hear everything about all of them. So I guess all my whining here is to say that I really liked the book and am just upset there wasn’t more of it.

33. The Big Green Tent: A Novel by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, translated by Polly Gannon: This is that little 592-page novel that ate up a bunch of my August and September. It was totally worth the effort, but, whew, did it take a while to read. I’ll save my comments on this one as I have a review of it forthcoming at The Rumpus. [EDIT: Here is the link to the review on The Rumpus!]

34. Alone Forever: The Singles Collection by Liz Prince: I panicked after spending so much time on The Big Green Tent and grabbed a short and sweet comic collection by local writer and artist, Liz Prince. I read her Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir last fall, and I loved it. I enjoyed the standalone comics of Alone Forever, but I definitely preferred Tomboy. Prince can do a really great job at managing a long, connected storyline, and I think that’s why my favorite part of Alone Forever was the multi-part series about Prince’s OK Cupid dating history. (Though I do love that Prince is local, so I got a little thrill every time she would try to make eyes at a dude on the Red Line or go on a blind date at Diesel Cafe–I’ve been there! I’ve done that!) I think that Alone Forever doesn’t show Prince’s full potential as an artist. Still, it’s fun, and I would recommend reading it, especially if you’re currently going through Tinder Hell.

35. The Mountaintop by Katori Hall: Shout out to Dan Halperin who recommended a whole list of women playwrights for me to read! His suggestions did not disappoint. I’ve spent a lot of time this fall remembering just how much I love theatre and how helpful it is to read plays to help think about dialogue in prose, and, on top of all that, Hall’s The Mountaintop was an incredible play that made me think about how to incorporate real people into fictional work and how to carry a play with only two characters and how to write about history in a personal way and how to put magical realism on stage and and and and my mind was blown. I’m writing this from a coma. I’m a pile of mush. Bye.

36. The Worrier’s Guide to Life by Gemma Correll: I started reading this while standing in Newbury Comics, waiting for a certain wise man to finish browsing the records, and I had to buy the book to bring home to finish because I was making a scene in the store laughing. I was already familiar with some of Correll’s work from Twitter, but this whole book is a gem. Look at her website for a sampling, but go get the book and laugh-cry over it in the privacy of your own home.

37. The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith: This was another book I read for work, as it was summer reading for the 8th graders this year. Smith is another local writer, and I got that same thrill as I did reading Liz Prince whenever her characters did things that I have also done, such as walk by Jamaica Pond or go to Starbucks in Brookline or drive down Blue Hill Ave. The story tackles the intense, complicated issues of reparations, Boston’s kept-quiet ugly history of slavery, how race and class play into relationships, and how history shapes everything we do in the contemporary world. It also is a ghost story/mystery, which makes for fast-paced reading.

38. Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson: This is what I’m currently reading. I pre-ordered this book and picked it up on the day it came out, September 8th, but am just getting to it now. So it goes. The author of this memoir is my beloved professor and thesis-reader from Columbia’s Writing Program, and I already have good feelings about this book, because Margo is the best. If you don’t believe me, read my Non-Fiction by Non-Men interview with her from this summer.

And now it’s time for those horrible statistics! Out of the twelve books above, only five are by women of color, and three are by out members of the LGBTQ community (I never want to assume anything about anyone’s sexuality or gender identity). Basically, I’m a mess, and I need to really plan out everything I’m going to read for the rest of the year, because when you grab random comic books at Newbury Comics, the odds are they’re usually by white women, if they’re by women at all. So. I’m ashamed, but I’m going to keep at it.

I’ve also realized something: while I really want to hit my 50-books-by-women goal for 2015, either way it doesn’t mean that in January 2016 I’m going to go back to reading only books by white dudes all the time. Sure, I’m looking forward to reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, but I think trying to read mostly-to-only books by women is going to be a goal of mine for the rest of my life. One of my fellow teachers has said that she feels that diversity and inclusion goals are a mindset, not a set curriculum. It was never as if I read 50 books by women and *poof* I would suddenly just get it. It’s an ongoing, life-long process.

Still, I’m going to try my hardest to hit my 50 books by January 1, 2016. Wish me luck!

P.S. If you can’t wait until the end of the fourth (LAST!) quarter to see what I’m reading, follow me on GoodReads.

The post 2015 Reading Challenge: 3rd Quarter Check-In appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

In case you forgot: My goal for 2015 is to read 50 books by women, with the majority of those by women of color.

In terms of numbers, 25% of fifty is 12.5, and I’m right on track––halfway through book number thirteen. However, some may argue that I’ve cheated a little by including a couple of young adult books and graphic novels. Plus I also read a short story and an essay that were masquerading as books, so maybe I’m not doing quite as well as I thought, but you all can decide for yourselves and judge me in the comments.

Here’s what I’ve read so far in 2015:

1. The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison: I am totally in love with badass women essayists, and Jamison is at the top of my current list. She does that thing that I love of combining a personal experience with historical/cultural research and commentary, and I think Jamison is brilliant at it. So many excellent essays in here, but I think my favorite was “In Defense of Saccharin(e).”

2. Embroideries by Marjan Satrapi: Satrapi is the author of Persepolis, her memoir about growing up in Iran after the Iranian revolution. Compared to Persepolis, Embroideries has less of a straightforward narrative storyline––the book depicts a group of women who are friends, family, and neighbors, drinking tea together and sharing stories from their lives. The dialogue is energetic, and I enjoyed bouncing between the different stories and learning about the lives of women in Iran.

3. The Tarantula in My Purse and 172 Other Wild Pets by Jean Craighead George: I read this entire book out loud so many times to the Babysitting Charge that I felt I had to count it. George is an epic YA author, and I had never read any of her nonfiction before, but I loved seeing where she got the inspiration for so many of her YA books. Who knew she had so many wild pets of her own? My only complaint: no wolves. I mean, isn’t she most famous for her YA novel Julie of the Wolves? Sheesh.

4. The Embassy of Cambodia by Zadie Smith: This was the short story disguised as a book. I got halfway through the story and realized that I had already read it when it first appeared in The New Yorker, and I had simply been deceived by the cute little single-story European edition. Great job, marketing team. (Okay, I guess it is a stretch letting this one count, especially since I had read the story before.)

5. Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay: I still can’t stop thinking about this book. Gay discusses so incredibly what it means to be a human––a well-intentioned, messy, flawed, contradictory human. I really loved the personal essays in this collection. A few of the reviews dragged for me, especially when they were about something I hadn’t read or seen and/or don’t care about, but, over all, I wanted to start rereading this book as soon as I finished. I think that Gay’s version of feminism should be adopted as essential feminism. I hope it becomes mainstream feminism. Plus she made me feel better for identifying as a feminist but also loving Jay-Z.

6. Yes Please by Amy Poehler: Poehler is the best––smart, thoughtful, brutally honest, and hilarious. There were times while reading that this book that it felt rushed, as if Poehler’s agent and publisher had been thinking HEY HURRY UP WE GOT TO GET ON THIS WOMEN IN COMEDY MEMOIR BANDWAGON ASAP (see: Bossy Pants by Tina Fey, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling, etc.) But I was willing to forgive that, and some of the chapters that felt more like filler (the lists, the haikus), just because I love Poehler so much. I might be biased though, because I think you will especially appreciate this book if you’re from the Greater Boston Area. It brought back so many memories of my teenage days at the Burlington Mall and childhood birthdays at Chadwick’s. Yes, I do love Poehler, even if I am from Lexington, and she is just “Burlington trash.” (Rachel Dratch knows what I’m talking about.)

7. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I’ve been in such a nonfiction black hole for the past two-and-a-half years, that it is always fun and refreshing when I read a novel for a change. This is such a great story, with characters I really cared about and grew to know. Plus Adichie is funny as hell and sharp and smart, and I love her commentary on race and racism in America, woven into the plot so seamlessly and thoughtfully. I get what all the fuss was about. This book is excellent.

8. Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on Their Decision Not To Have Kids, edited by Meghan Daum: I wrote a whole review of this anthology for Fiction Advocate that will go up on April 16. Stay tuned.

9. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh: This book is neurotic, weird, amazing, and perfect. Just read it. Any way I try to explain it will sound crazy––it’s not quite a graphic novel, it’s not just illustrated essays, it’s something much more. I still laugh to myself just thinking about the chapter about how dogs don’t understand moving.

10. Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter by Nina MacLaughlin: I think this book is my pick for favorite so far of 2015. I’m definitely biased because I’ve met MacLaughlin, I think she is awesome, and we also went to the same high school (good ol’ Noble & Greenough––she was class of 1997, I was class of 2006). BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT I don’t care, this book is SO FANTASTIC. Perhaps I loved it so much just because this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: how writing is all in your head, your eyes on a computer screen, how out of touch you are with actual reality, and also trying to find other work to balance out all the writing that uses a different part of your brain, that makes you feel good and happy and accomplished in another way, maybe a job that gets you outside…. MacLaughlin seems to have found the perfect balance, and has written a kick-ass book about it all. Plus, just like Jamison, MacLaughlin adds in so many interesting historical and cultural elements to her own personal story. I know all about the history of screwdrivers now!

11. If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan: This is another book written by a Nobles alumna––Farizan was class of 2003, and she was a senior when I was a freshman, and so, of course, I always thought she was super cool. Now I think she is even cooler for having written this book. This novel has a great message about staying true to who you are, despite horrific circumstances, but also about how life doesn’t always have a fairy tale ending. I was thrilled while reading it to see a realistic and thoughtful book for young adults as opposed to so much of the saccharine happily ever after YA crap out there. So much stuff marketed to young adults is dumbed down and superficial, and kids pick up on that and hate it. They can handle important, heavy subject matter, and, in fact, already think about it, even if a lot of the stuff targeting them doesn’t show it. I think it’s great that Farizan has taken intense, big issues––such as sexuality and gender identity and feminism and politics––and put them in a book for kids.

12. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: This was the essay disguised as a book. In fact, it’s actually Adichie’s famous TED Talk about feminism––expanded and edited––bound beautifully. Whoops. Again, probably a stretch to count this, but Adichie is brilliant and eloquent and every god damn person in the WORLD needs to read the 48 pages of this slim little book.

13. The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard: Currently reading this one. I’m about halfway through this collection, which every person who writes nonfiction ever has told me to read. No, I haven’t gotten to the essay “The Fourth State of Matter” yet, but I hear that’s the really good one.

As for my goal of reading a majority of books by women of color, I need to do better. Out of the twelve books I’ve finished reading, six were by women of color, though two of those were by the same woman (Adichie). As for the essay anthology (Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed), out of seventeen contributors, only three were people of color (17.6%), and saying that I’ve read 6.176 books by women of color is just pathetic in a grasping-at-straws way to hit the majority, so I’m going to let that one go. Besides, three of the seventeen contributors in that anthology were men, so if we’re splitting hairs here, in that way, I’ve also only technically read 11.824 books by women so far in 2015. Yeah. Let’s not do that.

IN SUMMARY: I’m doing okay, but I definitely could be doing a lot better.

P.S. If you can’t wait until the end of the second quarter to see what I’m reading, follow me on GoodReads.

P.P.S. This is not an April Fools Day joke.

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