This just in from The Huffington Post, where I occasionally post commentary when I feel like not getting paid. Publishing at HuffPo is a great opportunity for exposure, but for working journalists, well, let’s just say I’ve slowed down my contributions over time. Nevertheless, it is a WONDERFUL opp for visibility and I can’t recommend it enough for those seeking to break into print. So here’s the announcement about their new initiative, because I definitely want to help them spread the word (and because I hugely admire the new initiative’s clever logo, and because I recently met — and loved — Eat the Post editor Rachel Sklar!):

It’s the electoral race of the century. Political maps are being redrawn, and rules are getting rewritten across the board. Fundraising records have been broken. The candidates are even comparing the sizes of their email lists.

The mainstream media is tripping over itself to report on every last press release and campaign announcement. But do any of us REALLY know what’s going on?

With you helping from the frontlines, the Huffington Post can change campaign coverage. OffTheBus is HuffPost’s citizen-powered and -produced election site, and we’re depending on readers like you to tip us to what’s going on or, better yet, to write up the stories you think should be covered.

WOULD YOU HELP US?
Chances are you’re a political junkie. That’s why you got involved in HuffPost’s community as a commenter. But why stop there?

By becoming a member of HuffPost’s OffTheBus, you can publish op-eds and news stories to the Huffington Post. You get first-hand access to editors. The best citizen reporting is cross-posted to the politics page and homepage. Or, you can jump into our collaborative reporting assignments, like our Superdelegate Investigation or OffTheBus Party Map.

GET PUBLISHED AT HUFFINGTON POST.
Last October OffTheBus members dropped in on Sen. Barack Obama’s Nationwide Canvassing Day from more than two dozen locations. Hours later every observer independently relayed to us that the economy, not the war, was the voting issue. Twenty-four hours later we reported on the significance of the economy, beating the mainstream media to the punch by a few weeks.

As our numbers grow, the same collaborative reporting model that got HuffPost’s OffTheBus the scoop on the economy may tell us a lot more about what’s happening nationwide.

YOU GAME? JOIN HUFFPOST’S OFFTHEBUS.
Click here to sign up.

In August, Women, Power and Politics (aka the online exhibit qua very creative webjournal of the International Museum of Women) will look at how women have created recipes for democracy around the world. They’re seeking fresh thoughts, in a variety of forms, on women creating democracy. Submit your creative work by July 15 to be considered for the August focus. To learn more, visit www.imow.org/submissions.

Other of their upcoming submissions categories:

  • September: Why is Voting Important?
  • October: Women Running for Office
  • November: Women Working Together Across Borders

Deadlines for submissions categories vary. Visit www.imow.org/submissions to find the latest date that you can submit work.

And speaking of family pics, this is my uncle, Norm “MadDawg” Siegel, musician extraordinaire! For those of you in sweet home Chicago, MadDawg will be playing on July 13 at Bill’s Blues Bar (1029 Davis, Evanston) at 7pm. He’ll be cutting loose with a mix of some of Chicago’s best singer songwriters from the great Folk era of the late ‘60’s and ‘70’s. Following Norm will be Jim Fine, a former Evanstonian singer songwriter and guitarist.

And since I can’t seem to refrain from wedding blogging, one more tidbit about Norm: he has taken time out to learn acoustic renditions of Dodi Li and and Erev Shel Shoshanim (Jewish wedding tunes) that Marco and I picked out and will be playing us down the aisle A WEEK FROM THIS COMING SUNDAY. What an uncle, huh?!

So Marco and I are digging up childhood pictures in honor of that age-old sappy of sappies tradition: the wedding slide show. This is me, pretending to read, and caught in the act. Goodness knows where I got the hat.

July 11-13, Amcrandale, NY:
Woodhull Institute Nonfiction Writing Intensive. It’s not too late! Join me–and Catherine Orenstein and Kristen Kemp–up in Ancramdale this weekend for some oped, magazine article, and book proposal writing good times! To register, email ecurtis@woodhull.org pronto and she’ll set you up.

August 11-13, NYC:
AFTER the honeymoon, I’ll be teaching a special three-day workshop this summer for the girls of Writopia Lab and am excited about the possibility of publishing some of the pieces that emerge from that workshop here on GWP. In the spring, I posted one by 14-year-old Writopia Writer, Sam French, on why she was supporting Hillary. In case you missed it, here tis.

Online seminar, 5 Tuesdays this fall:
Back with Version 2.0 of my Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade bloginar! Have you successfully tackled the book proposal but are struggling to find the right structure for your book, themes for your chapters, or hooks and anecdotes to draw the reader in? With In Progress: Getting Your Book DONE, I’ll take you beyond the book proposal and into the process of writing your first book.

Are you writing a book but lacking an author’s community? A writers’ group and the advice of someone who has done it before can aid you to overcome writer’s block or plain old frustration with structure and content. This one’s a hands-on seminar and author-led writer’s group for those in the middle of writing their first books for the public.

The course will offer:

-Exchanges with professionals in the field and your chance to ask those questions that have been plaguing you.
-Strategies for getting unblocked in the middle of Chapter Four
-Tips for crafting introductions and conclusions for the popular reader
-Workshops on playing with structure, chapter titles, and format
-And more.

For more info or to register, please email kristen.loveland@gmail.com.

And lastly, a fall blogging bloginar (how’s that for meta) may very well be in the works. If interested, please let Kristen know and we will send a heads up when details are underway.

Yet another conference I wish I could be at but will be on my honeymoon(!) instead:

If anyone attending would like to do some liveblogging from the conference here on GWP, please do let me know (girlwpen@gmail.com).

So I’m finishing up a report this week on media coverage of race, gender, class, and age in the 2008 primaries. And I’m so jazzed by Gina McCauley’s Michelle Obama Watch and what I’ve learned about it so far that it merits another post. And another, and another to be sure.

I corresponded with Gina yesterday and learned that there have been over 90,000 page views in the 20 days since the site’s been up. A recent piece about MOW in The Baltimore Sun tentatively asks “Michele Obama Ties Black, White Women?” and notes, “Gina McCauley’s blog on African-American women in pop culture has never attracted this kind of attention. But she launched a new Michelle Obama Watch blog in June to monitor and critique media coverage of the potential first lady, and since then, feminists of all colors have been linking and commenting.”

The solidarity is key, and Gina knows it’s about something more. As she wrote to me in an email:

“[T]his ultimately isn’t about Michelle Obama, it is an exercise in how the nation, the news media and entertainment industry in particular, an deal or not deal with an African American women who defies the dominant stereotypes perpetuated about us. If we let them get away with their chicanery with a Harvard-educated attorney, then the next Black woman to walk in her footsteps would have to to trod a more difficult path.”

Hells yes.

The site currently has 13 volunteer contributors who have contributed 88 posts. Got a news tip for the site? Direct your concerns, complaints, or praise about the media’s treatment of Michele Obama to michelleobamawatch@gmail.com. And watch for more from Gina over at What about Our Daughters, which has received credentials to cover the 2008 Democratic National Convention in August.

This morning I’m pleased to bring you a review by Claire Mysko (pictured left), author of the just-released You’re Amazing!: A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self. I mean really, who better to review an anthology of very personal essays about what women see when they look in the mirror than a writer who is also the co-founder of Inside Beauty and 5 Resolutions to Transform the Fashion and Beauty Industries, two groundbreaking initiatives that have garnered international acclaim for responsibly addressing the intersections of health, body image, fashion, and beauty?! Without further ado, here’s Claire. – GWP


About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look In the Mirror

Edited by Anne Burt & Christina Baker Kline

Seal Press

Too often, beauty and body image are dismissed as superficial issues. Courtney Martin recently wrote about an exchange she had with another feminist who told her, “I’m so sick of hearing young feminists talk about fashion and body image…What about the women in Afghanistan!?” I would encourage that feminist to read About Face—a collection of twenty-three essays written by women talking about what they see when they look in the mirror. This is certainly not fluff or frivolity. The writers in this anthology share deeply personal stories that build a compelling case for the central message of this collection: It’s complicated. It’s complicated because what we see in the mirror is subjective. As we come to new understandings about our lives and ourselves, the way we see our faces can change, too.

Meredith Maran exposes what se learned about her own beauty when she was photographed with her supermodel niece. Kym Ragusa approaches her reflection as ethnography, tracing her features through photos of her mother and grandmother, and the lines on maps revealing where her family has made its mark over the centuries. And in her essay “Souvenir,” Manijeh Nasrabadi describes how a trip to stay with her family in Iran transformed her reflection:

“Snagged by my own reflection, I stopped and stared. Nothing jarred. Nothing tweaked my consciousness painfully away from some imagined, whiter version of myself. It was as if the settings in my brain had changed and reconfigured what my mind could see. Oh, so that’s what I look like. I heard myself sigh in relief. There was nothing ugly or needed to be changed. There was nothing American, Jewish, Zoroastrian, or Iranian to hate or hide. I laughed with myself. I smiled, and it was me I saw smiling. Then I knew what it meant to feel at home.”

I am one of those young feminists who believes it is critically important for women to talk about body image and beauty. We must explore how the reflection we see in the mirror is a reflection of our relationships, our experiences, our cultures, and our exposure to media messages—if not for ourselves, then for future generations.

According to the Girls Inc. “Supergirl Dilemma” study, we have made great progress in overcoming some gender stereotypes over the last six years. More girls now see that they can be good leaders and fewer girls believe that they should be expected to take care of housework and babysitting. The areas where stereotypes and pressures have gotten worse? Looks and appearance. In 2000, 74% of girls said that girls are under a lot of pressure to dress the right way; in 2006, that number jumped to 84%. Sixty percent of girls in the study believe that they must be thin to be popular; that’s up from 48% in 2000.

About Face is the kind of book that can prepare us to be the role models these girls need. The editors say that “looking in the mirror without turning away—and then talking about it honestly—is a radical act.” The women in this collection have taken that task to heart. I hope that others will read their words and be inspired to stage their own radical acts, whether in the bathroom mirror, in the rearview mirror, or even passing by a store window. These reflections offer opportunities for positive change. Let’s claim them as our own.

Weekend recap:
I look away for one minute and Talia, age 3,
has figured out how to post on my blog!

This here’s a shot of my dude Marco eating our friend Daphne’s baby, Gabriel, while Gabriel tries to eat his own arm.

That’s Daph in the back, furiously trying to pack up and get back to the city, which is where we’re headed tomorrow morning too. Alas. It’s been wonderful communing with our wedding site out here in upstate NY! I feel like Speed Bride; we got so many wedding errands done that now I’m ready for a vacation 🙂