—

Leslie Brody is a creative writing professor, playwright, and biographer. She is the author of Irrepressible, her biography of Jessica Mitford, and Sometimes You Have to Lie, her biography of Louise Fitzhugh, author of Harriet the Spy. In addition to her works of biography, Leslie Brody has written a memoir, Red Star Sister, which received the PEN Center USA West Award, and co-authored a book of essays with Gary Amdahl, entitled A Motel of the Mind. She has held International Writing Fellowships at Hawthornden in Scotland and the Camargo Foundation in France. In the U.S. she’s been an artist-in-residence/fellow at the McDowell Colony, Centrum, Yaddo, Red Cinder Colony, Ragdale and the Virginia Center for the Arts. Brody received her MA and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. Since 1998, she has taught Creative Nonfiction in the Creative Writing Department at the University of Redlands.

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Leslie Brody appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Patrice Caldwell ’15 is the founder & fundraising chair of People of Color in Publishing – a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting, empowering, and uplifting racially and ethnically marginalized members of the book publishing industry. Born and raised in Texas, Patrice was a children’s book editor before shifting to be a literary agent at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.

In 2018, she was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree and featured on The Writer’s Digest podcast and Bustle’s inaugural “Lit List” as one of ten women changing the book world.

Her anthology, A Phoenix First Must Burn – 16 stories of Black girl magic, resistance, and hope – is out March 10, 2020 from Viking Books for Young Readers/Penguin Teen in the US/Canada and Hot Key Books in the UK! Visit Patrice online at patricecaldwell.com, Twitter @whimsicallyours, and Instagram @whimsicalaquarian.

Wellesley Underground’s Wellesley Writes it Series Editor, E.B. Bartels ’10, had the chance to converse with Patrice via email about publishing, reading, and writing. E.B. is grateful to Patrice for willing to be part of the Wellesley Writes It series, even with everything else she has going on!

EB: When did you first become interested in going into writing and publishing? Did something at Wellesley spark that interest?

PC: For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved writing. It’s how I best express myself. That love pretty naturally grew into creating stories. I’ve always had a very vivid imagination. I’ve also always been pretty aware that publishers exist. I remember at a young age noticing the logos on the spines of books (notating the imprint/publisher), so by the time I was a teen I could recall which publishers published my favorite books (served me very well in interviews, haha) and was curious about that process. But I was a theater kid, intensely, that’s what I thought I would do, but then I decided to go to Wellesley and majored in political science (especially theory—I took ever class Professor Grattan, she’s brilliant) but then dabbled in a bunch of other subjects, including English. I think English courses definitely strengthened my critical thinking, but I absolutely do not think you have to be an English or creative writing major in order to work in publishing or be a writer. My theater background is just as helpful as is my political theory one. (I have friends who are best-selling authors who did MFA programs and others who never went to college.)

Wellesley was my safe space. I came back to myself while at Wellesley. I wrote three (unpublished) manuscripts during my time there, starting the summer after my first year, and I held publishing and writing related internships. I also took a fantastic children’s literature course taught by Susan Meyer (who’s a children’s author herself!) that changed my world. I highly recommend it. We studied children’s literature, got to talk to an author and a literary agent, and we wrote our own stories. I later did a creative writing independent study with her, and I truly thank Professor Meyer for expanding my interest in writing and publishing.

EB: How did People in Color Publishing come about? What goals do you have for the organization? What would you like people to know about it?

PC: I founded People of Color in Publishing in August 2016 to allow people of color clearer access into the book publishing industry, better support networks, and professional development opportunities. It really is about sending the elevator back down for others after climbing (& maybe even assembling) the stairs.

We’re currently working towards nonprofit status. You can learn more about us and our initiatives at https://www.pocinpublishing.com/ and sign up for our newsletter, which is incredibly well done. As you’ll see when you visit the site, the organization really is a team effort. I don’t and couldn’t do this alone; I’ve had an amazing team with me from day one. We each play to our strengths and work really well together. (The org is very active on Instagram and Twitter, too!)

EB: I am really excited about your collection A Phoenix First Must Burn, coming out from Penguin Random House on March 10, 2020. What inspired you to put together that anthology? What was challenging about the process of compiling the anthology, and what was rewarding about it?

PC: Thank you; I’m so excited for it as well. I talk about this more in the book’s introduction, but I was inspired by my eternal love for Octavia Butler—the title even comes from a passage in Parable of the Talents—as well as similar adult market anthologies like Sheree R. Thomas’s Dark Matter, and wondering what one for teens would look like. The answer is power and imagination like I’ve never before seen, in the form of a kick-ass, #BlackGirlMagic anthology that’s hella queer—I love it and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Before I became a literary agent, I was a children’s book editor. The editing of these stories was the easy part. It was super fun. The hard part was wrangling of everyone, haha. Thankfully they were amazing to work with and I wasn’t doing it alone—my then editor Kendra Levin also has a fantastic editorial eye.

As for what was rewarding, my younger self needed this. Like I said, it’s Black and queer. Since Toni Morrison passed, a day hasn’t gone by in which I’ve thought, about how she wrote for Black people, especially Black women, unapologetically. I feel that deeply. I got to work with some of my favorite writers writing today. How often does someone get to say that, you know. And, I grew a lot as a writer. I never thought I could write a short story, but I did. We’ve been getting some really great early reviews (like this beautifully-written starred review from Kirkus, OMG!) But going back to how my younger self needed this, the most rewarding thing has been the people who’ve reached out how excited they are to read it and how much they’ve been craving a book like this. It’s a dream come true. A dream I strategized to reach, worked my butt off on, and so yeah, I’m over the moon.

—

Go to Wellesley Underground for the complete conversation!

The post Wellesley Writes It: Patrice Caldwell appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Happy 2020, my bookish friends!

First off, let me say right away that I will NOT be doing a favorite books of the past decade post. Sorry, but also I am not sorry, because I would actually drive myself insane trying to figure out my favorite books from the PAST TEN YEARS. That is so many years! So many books! How is that even possible? Also, it seems unfair? Ten years ago, I was 22, and the books that hit me hard at 22, I may roll my eyes at now at 32, but I don’t think that diminishes the impact they had on me a decade ago, so, yeah, I’m not touching that.

If you want recaps of my past reading habits, check out my 2018 Reading Round-Up and 2017 Reading Round-Up posts and this piece I wrote for Wellesley Underground about spending 2015 only reading books by women. (2010 to 2012 I was pretty much reading only YA and middle grade books because I was teaching at a middle school in Dorchester, and 2012 to 2014 I was in grad school and was reading whatever my MFA professors were telling me to read, and then I guess I was too much of an empty shell in 2016 to write anything about what I read that year?) You can also browse my GoodReads profile which I have been updating regularly since January 2012, and see my GoodReads reading challenges from 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012.

I would only read 568 pages for Alexander Chee and no one else.

But! As promised, even if I can’t handle recapping the whole past decade, I present to you my annual reading tally for the past year. So, as is tradition, here is the breakdown of what I read in 2019, my top 19 books that were published 2019, plus my reading resolutions for the upcoming decade and some of the books I am looking forward to in 2020.

WHAT I READ:

• I read 122 books, by 107 writers.

THE GENRE BREAKDOWN:

• Fiction: 24
• Nonfiction: 39
• Graphic novels/comics: 3
• Graphic memoirs/nonfiction: 14
• Poetry: 9
• Drama: 1
• Young adult/middle grade: 10
• Picture/art books: 22*
• Books that I had already previously read: 6**

*Again, many of these were dead-pet-related picture books for research.

**Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson, Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN:

• Books by women of color: 29
• Books by white women: 55
• Books by men of color: 15
• Books by white men: 22
• Books by non-binary people of color: 1
• Books by non-binary white people: 0
• Books by LGBTQ folks: ~23

THE REASON-FOR-READING BREAKDOWN:

• Books for dead pets research: 48
• Books for Non-Fiction by Non-Men/other interviews/essays/reviews: 19
• Books for my People Who Read Darkness book club: 12
• Books for teaching: 4 (though every book I read is for teaching, in a way)
• Books for fun/other reasons/just for the hell of it: 39

E.B.’s TOP 19 BOOKS PUBLISHED in 2019:

As I’ve said in past years, I am really glad that I am doing this tradition of my top [xx] books published in 20[xx] because it means I get to add one more book to my list each year. I am also glad that in this list I focus on only books that were published in 2019 because that helps me further narrow down my choices, though it does mean that some of my favorite books I read this year may not make the cut, just because they weren’t published in 2019, such as Cottonmouths by Kelly J. Ford (2017) or Edinburgh by Alexander Chee (2001) or Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (2011) or The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (2015) or The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson (2018) or Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala (2013). So, it’s an imperfect art, but it makes my life a little easier, so here I present to you: my 19 favorite books that came out in 2019, organized chronologically by their publication date.

1. The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang (February 5)
2. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden (March 5)
3. Good Talk by Mira Jacob (March 26)
4. The Body Papers by Grace Talusan (April 9)
5. I Was Their American Dream by Malaka Gharib (April 30)
6. Allowed to Grow Old by Isa Leshko (May 10)
7. Ugly Music by Diannely Antigua (May 15)
8. The Edge of Every Day: Sketches in Schizophrenia by Marin Sardy (May 21)
9. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (June 4)
10. Bunny by Mona Awad (June 11)
11. With a Polaroid Camera by Sarah Dickenson Snyder (June 25)
12. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton (August 6)
13. Mitz by Sigrid Nunez (August 6)
14. Malaya: Essays on Freedom by Cinelle Barnes (October 8)
15. Holding On To Nothing by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne (October 22)
16. This is My Body by Cameron Dezen Hammon (October 22)
17. In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (November 5)
18. The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West (November 5)
19. Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung by Nina MacLaughlin (November 12)

E.B.’s READING RESOLUTIONS for 2020 (& the rest of the decade):

• Last year I said I wanted the majority of the books I read in 2019 to be by people of color. I did not achieve that goal: of 122 books, 78 were by white people and 44 were by people of color. So, once again, my goal for the upcoming year is to read a majority of books by people of color.
• Also as I said last year, I want to keep reading more and more books by nonbinary people and LGBTQ folks. I am embarrassed that I only read one nonbinary author this year and that this year only 18% (down from 20% in 2018) of the authors I read identify openly as LGBTQ. I can do better.
• I want to continue to make sure my People Who Read Darkness book club reads diverse writers. (This year we only read one book by a person of color, My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, so we really need to work on that.)
• And also, like in past years, I need to keep paying attention to who is writing the books I am reading for research and diversify the voices I am quoting in my own writing.
• And, finally, as always, I want to continue to remind myself that if I don’t love something I am reading… I don’t have to finish it!!!! This is a reminder for you, too!

E.B.’s LIST OF BOOKS SHE IS ANTICIPATING in 2020:

There are many, many, MANY books to look forward in 2020, but here are just a few I am especially excited about, that you should put on your radar:

• I Know You Know Who I Am by Peter Kispert (February 11 from Penguin Books)
• Thin Places by Jordan Kisner (March 3 from FSG)
• Wow, No Thank You. by Samantha Irby (March 31 from Vintage)
• Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan (April 21 from Celadon Books)
• Summer Solstice by Nina MacLaughlin (April 27 from Black Sparrow Press)
• Fairest by Meredith Talusan (May 26 from Viking)
• Let’s Never Talk About This Again by Sara Faith Alterman (June 6 from Grand Central Publishing)
• The Names of All the Flowers by Melissa Valentine (July 14 from Feminist Press)
• Big Friendship by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman (July 14 from Simon & Schuster)
• A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens (July 28 from Razorbill)
• Tomboyland: Essays by Melissa Faliveno (August 4 from Topple Books)
• Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine (sometime in September from Graywolf)
• I also heard a rumor that Eula Biss has a new book coming out in fall 2020!

Here’s to reading all the books in 2020!

The post 2019 Reading Round-Up appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Thanks for the graphics and stats, GoodReads. Shocking that no one else has read “My Pet Died” by Rachel Biale.

WHAT I READ:

• I read 137 books, by 131 writers.

THE GENRE BREAKDOWN:

• Fiction: 19
• Nonfiction: 43
• Graphic novels/comics: 9
• Graphic memoirs/nonfiction: 7
• Poetry: 15
• Drama: 1
• Young adult/middle grade: 6
• Picture books: 37*
• Books that I had already previously read: 6**

*Most of these were for research. I swear.

**Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Playing Dead by Elizabeth Greenwood, Black Mass by Dick Lehr & Gerard O’Neill, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN:

• Books by women of color: 39
• Books by white women: 50
• Books by men of color: 14
• Books by white men: 26
• Books by non-binary people of color: 1
• Books by non-binary white people: 1
• Books by LGBTQ folks: ~26

THE REASON-FOR-READING BREAKDOWN:

• Books for research purposes: 30
• Books by Non-Fiction by Non-Men authors: 14
• Books for the Nobles English curriculum: 9
• Books for my true crime book club: 10
• Books for fun/other reasons/just for the hell of it: 74

E.B.’s TOP 18 BOOKS PUBLISHED in 2018:

I am really glad that I am doing this tradition of my top [xx] books published in 20[xx] because it means I get to add one more book to my list each year. HOWEVER: narrowing my list of books read this year down to only 18 was still brutal, so please appreciate the pain I went through to bring you this blog post. Now, without further ado, my top 18 books published in 2018, organized alphabetically by author’s last name.

1. Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (October 23, 2018)
2. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (April 17, 2018)
3. All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (October 2, 2018)
4. How To Sit by Tyrese Coleman (September 1, 2018)
5. My Own Devices by Dessa (September 8, 2018)
6. Freshwater by Awaeke Emezi (February 13, 2018)
7. Movers and Shakers by Hope Ewing (October 9, 2018)
8. Tango Lessons by Meghan Flaherty (June 19, 2018)
9. This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins (January 30, 2018)
10. Sick by Porochista Khakpour (June 5, 2018)
11. If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim (August 7, 2018)
12. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (February 27, 2018)
13. How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery (September 25, 2018)
14. Open Mic Night in Moscow by Audrey Murray (July 24, 2018)
15. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (February 6, 2018)
16. There There by Tommy Orange (June 5, 2018)
17. Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister (October 2, 2018)
18. My Dead Parents by Anya Yurchyshyn (March 27, 2018)

E.B.’s READING RESOLUTIONS for 2018:

• I want to continue reading more and more books by people of color, and my goal for 2019 is to read a majority books by people of color. (This year, of 137 books, 80 were by white people and 57 were by people of color.)
• I also want to keep reading more and more books by nonbinary people and LGBTQ folks. This year I read work by two nonbinary individuals and 20% of the authors I read were LGBTQ, which is okay, I guess, but could definitely be better.
• I want to make sure my true crime book club reads more diverse writers as well! (So many white people love to write about true crime.)
• Like last year, I need to keep paying attention to who is writing the books I am reading for research and diversify the voices I am quoting in my own writing.
• And, as always, I want to continue to remind myself that if I don’t love something I am reading… I don’t have to finish it!!!! This is a reminder for you, too!

Here’s to more amazing books in 2019!

The post 2018 Reading Round-Up appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Are you a teenager who wants to take a creative writing class this summer? Then you should consider signing up for one of the two week-long teen writing camps I am teaching at GrubStreet: Week of Drama: Playwriting and Screenwriting runs from July 16 through July 20, and August Week of Creative Writing for Teens: Section A runs from August 6 through August 10. Keep reading for more information!

—-

Week of Drama: Playwriting and Screenwriting
Monday, July 16 – Friday, July 20, 10:30am-3:30pm

• 5-day teen writing camp.
  
• Open to writers aged 13-18 years old.
• Scholarships available!

Do you know all the words to every song in Hamilton? Are you constantly watching old movies on Netflix? Do you live for the spotlight? Are the Academy Awards your personal Super Bowl? Then this week-long course on playwriting and screenwriting is for you! Designed for theatre geeks, musical nerds, film buffs, and series bingers we will study what makes for great dialogue, character development, pacing, and plot structure when it comes to plays and movies. During this course, you will have the chance to try your hand at writing your own original play or screenplay and also learning the art of adapting a work for the stage or screen as we study famous screenwriters and playwrights from Jordan Peele to Wes Anderson to Mindy Kaling to Nora Ephron to Suzan-Lori Parks to Martin McDonagh to, of course, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Writing notebooks will be available, but feel free to bring your own. For writers age 13 – 18 ONLY.

—-

August Week of Creative Writing for Teens: Section A
Monday, August 6 – Friday, August 10, 10:30am-3:30pm

• 5-day teen writing camp.
  
• Open to writers aged 13-18 years old.
• Scholarships available!

In this week-long general creative writing course, we won’t discriminate based on genre! Whether you’re working on your first novel or writing memoir, short stories, poetry, plays, or fan fiction, this is an opportunity to improve your skills and learn about new forms. Each day will be filled with exercises designed to get you creating, and to expose you to new genres you may not have previously explored. What is flash fiction anyway? Does nonfiction have to be 500-page biographies of dead presidents? Do my characters have to be likable? How can I make my reader feel the way I am feeling? Do I have to stay confined to one genre? We’ll explore these questions and more! This class is geared toward creative, energetic, and open-minded writers all of levels who aren’t afraid to try something new. Writing notebooks will be available, but feel free to bring your own. For writers age 13 – 18 ONLY.

—-

Again, let me know if you have any questions! Sign up today!

The post GrubStreet summer classes: teen edition! appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

WHAT I READ:

• I read 110 books, by 96 writers.

THE GENRE BREAKDOWN:

• Fiction: 11
• Nonfiction: 29
• Graphic novels/comics: 5
• Graphic memoirs: 9
• Poetry: 8
• Drama: 2
• Young adult/middle grade: 6
• Picture books: 40*

*Most of these were for research purposes. There are a lot of kids’ books out there about how to cope with pet death, FYI.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN:

• Books by women of color: 22
• Books by white women: 56
• Books by men of color: 4
• Books by white men: 28
• Books by LGBTQ folks: 18

THE REASON-FOR-READING BREAKDOWN:

• Books for research purposes: 52
• Books for the Nobles 9th grade English curriculum: 4
• Books for fun: 54

E.B.’s TOP 17 BOOKS PUBLISHED in 2017:

I would just like to say that a lot of really great books were published in 2017. Narrowing it down to 17 was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. This list could have easily been twice as long, but “34 books published in 2017” didn’t have quite the same ring to it. But, ugh! Making choices is so hard! Sigh. Anyway, let me present to you, my top 17 books published in 2017, in alphabetical order by author’s last name.

1. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
2. How To Fall in Love with Anyone by Mandy Len Catron
3. From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
4. Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly
5. Hunger by Roxane Gay
6. Fetch by Nicole J. Georges
7. Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett
8. Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
9. Alfie (The Turtle that Disappeared) by Thyra Heder
10. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
11. One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
12. Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo
13. Yawn: Adventures in Boredom by Mary Mann
14. A Surprise for Mrs. Tortoise by Paula Merlán
15. Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello
16. A Girl Walks into a Book by Miranda K. Pennington
17. After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry

E.B.’s READING RESOLUTIONS for 2018:

• I need to pay more attention to who is writing the books I am reading for research and try to diversify the voices I am quoting in my own writing. (Turns out there are a lot of white ladies who like to write picture books about pets dying.)
• I need to continue to read more books by people of color and LGBTQ folks. (Especially men of color. That 2017 statistic was shameful.)
• I didn’t tally the exact numbers, but I know that most of the books I read this year were by American writers (Scaachi Koul was one of the most “exotic” as she is, gasp, Canadian) and I want to try to read more work by international authors.
• And I want to continue to remind myself that if I don’t love something I am reading… I don’t have to finish it. I’m going to die before I get to read everything on my To Read list on GoodReads, so, live it up. Life is short. Read what you want to be reading.

Here’s to a 2018 full of even more great books!

The post 2017 Reading Round-Up 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.

The post 2015 Reading Challenge: 1st Quarter Check-In appeared first on E.B. Bartels.