writing life

Official tour kicked off this week with a reading at a Border’s near Philly, hosted by the South Jersey Alice Paul chapter of NOW. Proceeds from the day went to the chapter — I hope they collected oodles! The audience was my ideal group, and I’m afraid they set the standard, now, for this tour. The president of the chapter was in her late 20s, and there were members there in their 60s as well.

Before the event, my host, the amazing, inspiring, long-time activist Judy Buckman, brought me to visit Paulsdale, the birthplace of Alice Paul. Apparently, during the long, hard suffrage campaign, Alice occasionally came there to recharge. Surrounded by acres of beautiful country, Paulsdale was her personal retreat. Judy told me about the more recent fight circa 1991 to register the place as a historic landmark (“Now it’d be easier if, say, you were talking about the home of Thomas Jefferson,” the Paulsdale crusaders were told.) The gorgeously restored farmhouse (above) is now home to the Alice Paul Institute, complete with leadership programs for young women and girls. I can’t wait to introduce the Woodhull (yes, as in Victoria) Institute to Alice’s Institute, if they aren’t friends already. I find it intensely moving the way first-wave heroines are being reclaimed by women’s institutions today.

In a stroke of perfect timing, Iron Jawed Angels arrived from Netflix last night. Can’t wait to check out Hilary Swank’s impersonation of Alice. Yeah, like I’m now on first-name basis with the author of the ERA. Guess that’s what happens when you visit Paulsdale. There’s something truly magical and inspirited about the place. Go there. You’ll see what I mean.

Ok, I’m more than a little psyched – PUB DAY IS HERE!! This morning I was carrying a copy of Sisterhood, Interrupted (which Marco has started to refer to for some reason as “Sisterrupted”) as I was waiting in line at Starbucks and the woman behind me asked “Is that book good? I like the title” and I got to say, “I wrote it!” Very fun way to start the day. That, and with a link to the awesome Courtney Martin’s piece on my book in AlterNet today. Also going live today is an interview by the amazing ladies over at the Center for New Words.

I forgot to mention yesterday how inspired I was by the Annual Spring Reading I went to on Sunday for Girls Write Now. Those girls have got it going on. The store (B&N at Astor Place) was jam packed, and the girls–all in their teens–read their heartfelt, beautiful, painful, poignant, courageous writing to the crowd. The fearless and ever-inspiring Jessica Valenti kicked it off. Congrats Patti and Maya and all the others over at GWN on such a stupendous event! And thank you for giving this grown up girl renewed energy and inspiration as I launch into this week!

My book Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild officially goes on sale tomorrow (gulp) and people have been asking (bless their hearts!) how they can help. Here are some suggestions:

1. BUY THE BOOK!

2. Tell someone else to buy the book, or buy it for your mother / daughter / sister / friend (it might make a strange Father’s Day present, but hey, why not! Hey Dad – guess what you’re getting this year!)

3. Write about it – on your blog, in a note to your mother/daughter, on the bathroom wall…

4. Come out to a reading, or tell friends, sisters, and aunts about a reading in the cities I’m going to (events posted here)

5. Host or gather a group of women, girls, and grrls across the generations and use the discussion guide in the back of the book to spark conversations about our differences, our similarities, the unfinished business of feminism, and what we all can do…!

And thank you, Girl with Pen readers, for all your support. It means the world to me that people are excited to read the book! You bigtime make my day. You do. I really mean that.

On HuffPo today (where I’ll soon be posting, too), Erica Jong calls for younger women writers to protest their ghettoization on the chick lit shelves:

Feminism didn’t change deep-seated priorities about what — or who — matters. I see deeply diminished expectations in young women writers. They may grumble about the chick lit ghetto, but they dare not make a fuss for fear they won’t be published at all. Their brashness is real enough, but they accept their packaging as the price of being published. My generation expected more. We did not always get it, but at least categorization outraged us. Where is the outrage now?

Feminists used to say the personal is political. I think we need to consider that message again now. We will never give peace a chance until we start paying as much attention to women as to war. Unless we value the bonds of love as much as male territoriality, we are goners.

I would like to see the talented new breed of American women writers — my daughter’s generation — protest their ghettoization. We need a new wave of feminism to set things right. But we’d better find a new name for it because like all words evoking women, the term feminism has been debased and discarded. Let’s celebrate our femaleness rather than fear it. And let’s mock the old-fashioned critics who dismiss us for thinking love matters. It does.

But younger women ARE protesting, and publishing outside of chick lit too. A notable example of course is Elizabeth Merrick’s anthology, This Is Not Chick Lit. And there are more like these in the works. They’re coming, Erica! Keep faith.

(And check out Elizabeth’s post on HuffPo back in April 2006, on her title.)

There’s just too much bloggy goodness going on today around the blogosphere and elsewhere for this girl to take in. So here’s my quick round-up of cheers, props, and commentary:

Cheers to Marc over at Feminist Dad for spreading the TRUTH about the opting-out (non)phenomenon. And props to Marco for his beautiful post (yes, I’m biased) over at Hokum today, which is part of MotherTalk’s Dangerous Boy Friday – a blogging bonanza in which bloggers are posting in response to that #6-on-Amazon phenomenon, The Dangerous Book for Boys.

Academia still seems to be dangerous for grown up girls seeking tenure. Caryn McTighue Musil sounds off over at Ms. on the hurdles facing women in academe, including “The Baby Gap”(women with babies are 29 percent less likely than women without to enter a tenure-track position, and married women are 20 percent less likely than single women to do so), and The Today Show this morning actually had a nice little chirpy segment on how working mothers get screwed when returning to work, facing significant salary cuts over time. But finally, there are solid messages out there now about how companies can do better – check out Sylvia Hewlett’s new book, Off Ramps and On Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success, and Lisa Belkin’s piece yesterday in the New York Times on the “opting back in” revolution, where she reports on corporate programs designed to recruit seasoned women with names like The Opt-In Program, as well as the new businesses cropping up to service this population, like HR Opt-In, MomCorps, and Flextime Lawyers.

Moving from work/life to writing/life, since I’m obsessed by the reception of books on feminism (personal interest, yeah, as well as professional and political yadda yadda), I’ve been following the coverage of feministing.com founder Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism with baited breath — and pretty much want to throw up. I’m sure I’ll be in for it too. Some publicists say, no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe, but my heart goes out to Jess who I hope KNOWS that she has written a fantabulous book (which is doing well, thank you very much, as far as Amazon rankings are concerned – and I urge you to buy it! buy it!). Anyway, Jill Filipovic over at Feministe has posted a passionate defense of both Jessica and her book, which has spawned over 100 comments. Here’s Jill:

Jessica wrote her book in a very particular way: She wrote it to make feminism accessible to women who might otherwise reject it. That is her purpose. Railing against capitalism and telling women that feminism is a movement which will not make your life any better doesn’t really seem to further that goal, does it? Neither does blathering on about how awesome high heels and pornography are. Jessica does neither….We need feminists like Jessica who do the very tough work of reaching out to women who are otherwise uninterested in feminism — feminists who are patient and generous, and who listen to the concerns and experiences of younger women without branding them stupid or not feminist enough.
What does Jessica get for doing that? She gets branded stupid and not feminist enough. She gets mocked by other feminists.

Amen, sister.

And to end this roundup on an up-note, if you happen to be in the Apple next week, be sure to check out:

A Reading with Girls Write Now
Thursday, May 24, 7pm
at 520 Eighth Avenue (b/w 36th & 37th sts.) on the 20th floor

Come out to hear girl writing mentors Pooja Makhijani, Maggie Pouncey, and Terry Selucky read their own fiction, nonfiction and poetry, plus special mentee emcees Phantasia Johnson, Lindsey Romain, and Briana Wilson.

GWN is a fantastic organization that nurtures and nourishes a future generation of women writers by hooking them up with mentors. The org is run by a group of women in their 20s and 30s who are unstoppable. If you can’t go to the reading, at least stop by their website and check them out. (Congrats GWN, on your new online home!)

But first, a big slurpy THANKS to all you who took the quiz below and sent me feedback (and especially to Marc, who saved me on that tenure bit, and to Dara, always). I truly appreciate it.

Ok, so my generational stripes are coming out, but can I just say how excited I am that Bust reviewed my book! I was hooked when they launched and became one of their early subscribers. It’s been fascinating–and fun–to watch them evolve.

So here’s what the Busties say in their next issue (June/July):

“Betty Friedan versus Gloria Steinem, radical feminists against cultural feminists, even Ms. contra Bust–[Sisterhood, Interrupted] is a history of battles within and between the second and third waves of feminism. Siegel surveys many instances of ‘feminist infighting’ over the last 30-odd years–wherein much energy has been spent debating how to achieve feminist goals as opposed to actively fomenting change–and explores the disconnect between older and younger feminists….The book’s singular focus on feuds presents an opportunity to revisit these happenings within the context of the movement–to see how the bickering often stalled forward progression and to learn from that.” – Bust Magazine

Ok, they said some other things too. But I swear, in light of that nice little piece by Henry Alford about mis-blurbing that appeared at the back of the New York Times Book Review the other week, I promise that what I’ve extracted here is verbatim and nondoctored. No really, I swear!

(That’s “shameless” as in “shameless self-promotion.” Please feel warned.)

The first review is in for Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women and Grrls Gone Wild — and it’s a starred one. I’m here in Chicago, at my parents’ house, repressing an urge to jump up and down on their bed.

Composure, Deb, composure.

So much to write about today I don’t know where to begin!

First, a launch near and dear to my heart: The Scholar & Feminist Online goes live today with an issue called Blogging Feminism. The issue is edited by Gwendolyn Beetham (a founder of the Real Hot 100) and Jessica Valenti (see posts below for scoop on Jessica’s smokin new book) and features essays by feminist academics and some of today’s most popular bloggers — including Samhita of feministing.com, Bitch PhD, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, Clancy Ratliff of CultureCat, Morgaine, and Chris Nolan of Spot-on.com — sandwiched by a foreword from Salon’s Rebecca Traister, and an afterword from yours truly. This is SO the issue we envisioned when we started SFO — interactive, crossovery, and on the mark. Can’t wait to see it go live later today.

The accompanying group blog can be accessed here:
http://bloggingfeminism.blogspot.com/

For one week after the edition launches, the blog portion of the
edition will be live, giving both the contributors and the readers a
chance to discuss the issues online. Add it to your blogroll! Come leave comments! I’ll see you there.

Just back from a reading of Only Child upstate. Daph and I spoke to a group of 40 women in Chester, New York – the sisterhood of a synagogue out there on Sunday (thank you, Paula!). They were an incredibly warm and responsive audience. I kept looking out and seeing my mother, who, actually, was thousands of miles away in Istanbul that day. After reading out loud the part from my essay that paints her in a, well, somewhat critical light, I felt this overwhelming need to tell the sisters “I love my mother! I love my mother!”

Talk about Jewish guilt.

The National Book Critics Circle has started an online petition to protest the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s decision to eliminate its book editor job (and with it Teresa Weaver). Oy. We NEED book reviews. This is BAD. But hopeful – forward the link! More commentary can be found here. (Thanks to Daph for sending it around.)