I love feministing and Broadsheet. But now I heart them even more for posting the year in feministing and the year in Broadsheet. It’s like a whirlwind tour through feminist (and antifeminist) America circa 2007. The scholar in me is thinking how great this kind of thing is for online archives, future feminist scholarship, and the like. But the girl in me is just thinking this kills. Remember when there weren’t yet blogs like these around? When keeping current on feminist news and issues and happenings was a far more scattershot endeavor? When researching a previous year’s happenings was not quite so easy as the click of a mouse? Keep it up, feministing and Broadsheet gals and readers. The womengirlsladies are cheering you on. (More on that clunky but catchy run-on word soon….)

What better way to kick off the new year than with the gift of sex? Sex writing, I mean of course. Rachel Kramer Bussel’s new anthology, Best Sex Writing 2008, looks like a must-read. Salon calls it “A fun, nimble book that never loses its sense of humor about itself.” The press release says it “captures the heart and soul of what’s happening behind the bedroom door, where lust, desire, gender, identity, sex work, and politics collide.” But Rachel puts in best in the opening line of her introduction: “Sex. One little word, so much drama.” Love that in the very first graf, Rachel looks back with a reference to Carole Vance’s anthology from the 1982 conference “Toward a Politics of Sexuality” at Barnard College, called Pleasure and Danger, noting how sex is an ever-evolving set of acts, philosophies, and identities that “teaches us, thrills us, empowers us, confuses us, electrifies us.” In all sorts of complex ways.

Check out the book’s blog, read the intro, and, if in NYC, join Rachel and friends at the book release party on January 22 at, where else, Rapture Cafe. There will be cupcakes. Details here. And stay tuned–I hope to be writing a bit more on the collection here on GWP.

Photo cred: Marco Acevedo

Catching up on, well, life, I wandered over to one of my publisher’s websites this morning and found a slew of kick-ass titles for 2008. Here’s a taste:

The Happy Stripper: Pleasures and Politics of the New Burlesque by Jacki Willson is due in January 2008. Why Women Wear What They Wear, by Sophie Woodward, and Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture, an anthology, are both due in February 2008.

Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts It In a Box, an anthology edited by Merri Lisa Johnson, is now out. And so is Geek Chick: Smart Women in Popular Culture, an anthology edited by Sherrie A. Inness. I am forever indebted to Sherrie for publishing my first piece in an anthology back when I was in graduate school–an essay on Nancy Drew. Happy 2008 Sherrie, wherever you are!

…but headed back to NYC tomorrow. BTW, that is not an embryo pictured left but a manatee, otherwise known as the sea cow. We missed the Weeki Watchee mermaid attraction but did manage to take in the two-headed turtle. Hope everyone’s having good times out there. I’ll be back to posting regularly next week!

In the spirit of sharing what I’m learning while on furlough at Starbucks, here’s some wisdom from the book I’m lapping up faster than my latte, called Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide (published by the Nieman Foundation):

• “The most mundane tale, imparted by an inspired storyteller, captivates….Readers will gladly follow a voice they trust almost anywhere” – Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, TTS

• “Structure is the deliberate and purposeful sequence of the reader’s experience.” Mark Kramer, TTS

• “Every narrative tale—from The Iliad to the latest Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper serial—has the same underlying structure…: A central character encounters a problem, struggles with it, and, in the end, overcomes it or is defeated by it or is changed in some way. If the story, as it unfolds in life, lacks one of these elements, you should not attempt to write it as a narrative.” –Bruce DeSilva, TTS

• “The narrative nonfiction equivalent of the film sound track is an idea plot: an ordered succession of arguments that moves forward in sync with the narrative plot….The more the writer thinks about the movement of the idea track in the narrative while reporting, the less clunky the execution.” – Nicholas Lemann, TTS

• “Beginning to read a story should feel like embarking on a journey, starting toward a destination. The writer must decide what larger meaning the story represents and lead the reader to that. Is it about fear? Is it about shame? Pain? Love? Betrayal? Hate? Faith?” – DeNeen L. Brown, TTS

• “To report and write good narrative it is important to develop a clear process that takes you from beginning to end: exhaustive researching, choosing a strong main character, thinking the story through, and reporting the story, scene, and theme. I have found that if I stick to that process and don’t take shortcuts, I always end up with what I need for the story. It might not be the story that I started out looking for, but it will be a story.” –Walt Harrington, TTS

And my personal favorite:

• “The story is in the dark. That is why inspiration is thought of as coming in flashes. Going into a narrative—into the narrative process—is a dark road. You can’t see your way ahead….The well of inspiration is a hole that leads downward.” –Margaret Atwood

Well, here I am visiting Marco’s folks in a town where there are more churches than gas stations. We are feeling a bit the fish out of water. To ground ourselves, we’ve made our way to the nearest dread Starbucks (a godsend!), where I am reading about writing and Marco is reading Salon. We are hopeless. Alas.

Some amazing things down here: Spanish moss, a sign for a horse ranch called “Ocala Stud,” a bar called “No Where?”, and Marco’s mom’s yucca pasteles.

Right about now, I’m wishing I had far deeper pockets and could give oodles to all my favorite orgs, all of which have sent me beautiful, moving appeal letters, some of which actually make me teary (clearly, I’m a mush). These orgs are all incredibly worthy and deserving and doing amazing things to make this world a more hospitable place for women and girls. What I can do, however, is spread the love by posting links to the orgs on my A-list that have donation pages, in case anyone is looking for a place to send a gift of impact.

Girls Write Now
Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership
Women and Media (WAM!)
National Council for Research on Women
Center for the Education of Women
National Women’s Studies Association
Wellesley Centers for Women
Girls Incorporated
New York Women’s Foundation

Happy, merry, joy, peace, light, and love to all!
(Image cred)

Herbert Allen has an interesting op-ed up over at the New York Times today, in case you missed it. Allen makes a case for a form of revenue sharing among colleges and universities that would allow the poor schools back into the competition for the best teachers and students. Writes Allen,

Our graduated income tax system sets varying tax rates based on income levels. Similarly, we could establish standards for the endowments of colleges and universities.

An example: Harvard or Williams (my alma mater) have endowments that are well over $500,000 per student. Why not take the colleges whose endowments exceed that per student amount and tax their capital gains? The tax revenue could then be put into a designated pool and distributed pro rata to colleges under the base level. The college with the lowest per student endowment would get the highest share.

…I know it won’t be easy to convince well-off schools to share their wealth. But they should. They should see this act as part of a down payment on their professed mission: to create a stronger, smarter and ultimately more stable society.

And on a slightly related note, for an interesting look at the pursuit of Ivy gold by a stellar emerging author, Joie Jager-Hyman, keep your eyes peeled this March for a book called Fat Evelope Frenzy:One Year, Five Promising Students, and the Pursuit of the Ivy League Prize.

I’m often asked what blogs I read regularly–especially by writer friends who find the blogosphere a) overwhelming (it is!) and b) easier to ignore (which I’m against!). Instead of going dark next week, I thought I’d try the autopost option and introduce GWP readers to some of the blogs in my RSS reader. Stay tuned…!