One Night Stanzas

I haven’t done a PS post in ages, but I have still been saving up cool and interesting links to share with all of you. So this one goes out to all the folks who’re stuck in work on Christmas Eve. Have a cheeky gander at this stuff and the time will fly by! Merry Christmas!

The conversation about money (or privilege) is the one we never have. Why? I think it’s the Marie Antoinette syndrome: those with privilege and luck don’t want the riffraff knowing the details. After all, if ‘those people” understood the differences in our lives, they might revolt. Or, God forbid, not see us as somehow more special, talented and/or deserving than them.

If you read nothing else in this post, read this: on writers, money and lies.

Buildings inspired by books.

You pick one store. Make it an indie. Maybe the one closest to your house. Make sure they have a website. Make sure your book is available on their website. Make sure the store is willing to ship books to customers. Link to your book through the store’s page. Tell the store you are doing this. If you have a big enough following and sales result, they will surely notice in a hurry anyhow. Even if not a single customer finds them through you, they will be happy. They will be happy with you.

from There Are Exactly Zero Defensible Reasons For Authors To Link To Amazon. Teaching you how — and why, though you probably already know — your should team up with indies and save bookselling!

An old train transformed into a bookshop. Yep.

Intellectual Lisa, with her penchant for museums and libraries, is an outlier in her family, in her whole town. But her basic brain power could easily have come from Marge. Although, unlike her mother, Lisa would never put her dreams aside. (Oh, Marge, your life of quite desperation depresses me so. How could you throw so much away, no matter how hot that Mr Plow jacket is?) How did Lisa manage to escape the domestic trap that ensnared her bright, brittle mother?

I am Lisa Simpson. You are Lisa Simpson. We are all Lisa Simpson.

Why we abandon books.

As a child, the island seemed so vast and full of wondrous possibility. Today, it’s just another beautiful, yet remote location. I know there are no mythical beasts tromping through its forests. The people living across the bay on Sandy Hook Drive are just normal folk with lives that are probably as mundane as mine. There is no more mystery, and very few days dedicated to discovery.

On wonder and creativity: There’s Bigfoot in Them Woods

This gorgeous e-book is beautifully illustrated with portraits of, and full of facts about, amazing women who’ve changed how we look at the world.

The images on this page would be unsatisfying to most horror fans, as the hallmark of modern zombie films is now life-like, over-the-top gore. It will serve us better, though, to first explore the origins of this time-honored creature that began as an obscure Haitian folk myth but is now one of our most revisited horror archetypes. It may first seem that history has little connection to our fictional flesh-eating friends, but they have complex origins, too little discussed and too often ignored by historians and horror fans alike: here we hope to provide the first step in the exploration of the phenomenon.

Find out where the shuffling, blood-spattered Walking Dead zombie really came from in Haiti & the Truth about Zombies.

The twenty most spell-binding university libraries in the world.

I find it interesting that the two male heroes of The Hunger Games are so different from one another, and that they embody such different ways of being men. While Gale is the character we might typically think of in a story like this one—a story with plenty of violence, high stakes, and sacrifice—Peeta is not.

This article has uber-spoilers, so if you haven’t yet finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy, steer away. But if you have, read this piece, for it is amazing: Gale, Peeta and Masculinity in The Hunger Games.

Courageous people expose their insecurities for the camera: the What I Be Project is some amazing photographic storytelling.

Atwood is a polymath. She has ideas about how to fix almost everything and takes pride in her rugged resourcefulness – unlike so many namby-pamby authors who wouldn’t have a clue what to do if the lights went out. When she walks down a street, for example, she likes to point out to whomever she’s with what, in the natural world, they could eat, should the need arise. “I just want them to be prepared.”

If you still haven’t read the Maddaddam trilogy, you need to do so right now. (If you have no plans to read it, we can never be friends.) Check out this interview with the sublime Margaret Atwood, and see if you’re not convinced.

You want to read this new poem by Freesia McKee. Trust me.

“My investigation file expanded from one inch to four inches and then to eight inches. The contents included personal data about Moore and his associates, printouts from his website, copies of relevant articles and reams of information on other involuntary porn stars who were featured on his site. I’d found others, and I knew it would be difficult for law enforcement to ignore folks from all over the country.”
Charlotte Laws took on the infamous internet predator Hunter Moore, and, well… she’s a total badass.

Here’s a map of London’s independent bookstores. You’re welcome.

I suspect the vehement dislike of tattoos is really a fear of women’s skin. When a woman makes her own mark on it, she isn’t quite as available to receive whatever fantasies you might want to project on to her. If skin is a screen, and a woman writes on it, she is telling the world (or even just herself) that her own standards of attractiveness are more important to her than the standards of anyone else.

I am violently in love with this Guardian article on women and tattoos. I mean really.

You’ve seen these amazing mother-daughter artistic collaborations, right?

[Beyonce] a work in progress, as are we all. In 2010, she gave an interview saying she was a “feminist in a way,” because she valued her female friendships deeply. Earlier this year, she claimed she was a “modern-day feminist.” Now she is straight up embracing the term in her music and claiming her right to tell women to both bowdown and encouraging them to be self-confident from the moment they step out of bed… in the same damn song! I rock with that because her feminism is complicated, and ours is too. Tell the truth.

I’ve loved reading the various voices rising above the wall of stupid that went up in response to Beyonce’s new record. This might be my favourite.

Life advice from Amy Poehler. Worth passing on!
Speaking of Beyonce: I FREAKING LOVE THIS RECORD SO MUCH.
OMG Watsky. You may have jumped off a lighting rig at a gig like an IDIOT, but I can’t help but still love you.
Cool.

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

It’s International Women’s Day 2011, and the 100 year anniversary of International Women’s Day to boot! I hope you’re all doing something awesome to mark the occasion. For my part, I a) educated a well-meaning but misguided man when he came to my Facebook page to ask “why do we need a day for women anyway?” (he was mainly disgruntled about the fact that there is “no Man Day” — except, er, there is you guys! Yay!), and b) donated £50 to World Pulse. I’ve also been trying to spread the message about What Day This Is to the people around me, and as part of that, I’ve decided to write a wee post here about the women who inspire me. I’ve taken the idea from my super-talented and fabulous sister Helen, who made the short film at the bottom of this page.

Margaret Atwood
I don’t really need to say much here, do I? I’m sure you’re all aware of what a huge literary force of nature Margaret Atwood is, even if you don’t love her writing (not meaning to alarm you, but there’s something wrong with you, by the way). As well as being an incredible novelist and poet, she’s also written extensively on the nature of writing as a craft, on Canadian writing and on women’s writing. She is a tireless campaigner for all manner of green and other political issues, and — I’ve met her! — a lovely person into the bargain.

Emmeline Pankhurst
Again, I’m sure most of you have at least a vague idea of who this lady was, but for those of you who need some clarification: Emmeline Pankhurst is one of the most influential female political figures of all time and has been named one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. As the founder of the WSPU she played a leading and pivotal role in the UK women’s suffrage movement, campaigning tirelessly and, controversially, sometimes violently to gain political agency for British women. Along with her daughter Christabel and her dedicated legion of WSPU followers, she changed the face of British — and by extension, world — politics forever.

Marie, Lady Stubbs DSG
Marie Stubbs is an inspirational Scotswoman and a fantastic teacher and educator (now retired), whose story was recently told via Ahead of the Class, a TV film starring Julie Walters. Stubbs took over the governance of St George’s Roman Catholic Secondary School in Maida Vale following the shocking murder of its former head teacher Philip Lawrence, and after regulatory bodies had rated the school’s education provision and learner engagement and well-being as dangerously poor. Stubbs took a radical new approach, with the motto “every child should be intrinsically valued,” managing to execute a truly inspirational turnaround in the school’s fortunes, engaging learners and staff in innovative new ways. As a teacher, she’s one of my heroines.

Gabourey Sidibe
I’ll be honest — there aren’t that many Hollywood actresses I’d fancy going out for a pint and a chat with (though there’s another exception below), but Gabourey Sidibe? FOR SURE. Although I’d probably be totally tongue-tied when it came to the ‘chat’ bit, because I think this woman is a frickin’ goddess. She shot to fame a couple of years ago in the movie Precious, but unfortunately it was apparently impossible for critics and audiences to talk solely about her acting abilities. This woman must have faced more scrutiny about her weight and appearance than half of the rest of Hollywood put together, and I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for her to be nominated for an Oscar but only able to read articles with headlines like “who the hell is going to dress Gabby Sidibe for the red carpet?!” Sidibe is not a trained actor and Precious was her first role, yet she has handled the immense (and often negative) media attention like a pro, managing to maintain the air of a genuinely nice person at the same time. Personally, I think she is super-talented, absolutely gorgeous and seriously inspirational.

Kate Winslet
I love Kate Winslet as an actress — she plays the female lead in what is possibly my all-time favourite film, and has also portrayed one of my all-time favourite literary characters. However, I also love her for her tireless campaigning for women — Winslet is one of very, very few Hollywood actresses prepared to speak out about the damaging beauty standard perpetuated by her profession. She is a very vocal supporter of eating disorder charities, has spoken out on numerous occasions about the airbrushing and retouching of actresses and models in the media, and speaks regularly in interviews about her disdain for beauty and fashion magazines and their direct negative impact on the self-esteem of women and girls. And even if this stuff isn’t something that bugs you, you have to admit… she’s a great actress.

Melissa McEwan
Melissa McEwan is the founder of my all-time favourite blog Shakesville, founded in 2004 as Shakespeare’s Sister. I won’t say too much about Melissa herself, because she’s only one of a small but hardworking group of contributors and a much wider and even more vocal group of commenters who keep Shakesville going, and who keep it awesome. But I’ve picked her out in particular because it’s usually her posts, thoughts and comments that particularly chime with me. Shakesville has fundamentally changed the way I look at myself, other women, men, the media and politics. Here’s a little more about it, from their “About” page:
Shakesville is a feminist blog, and a feminist’s blog. It is a progressive blog. It is a safe space. It is a community. It is a blog whose contributors are resolved to be willing to self-examine and learn, and whose community members are expected to do the same. Forward movement, progress, on cultural, political, and individual levels is woven into the fabric of Shakesville. Our key objectives are equality, liberty, and justice for all, empathy, self-awareness, growth, momentum, compassion, and laughter. We blog about domestic politics, foreign policy, high culture, pop culture, books, film, telly, food, the patriarchy, oppression, repression, religion, philosophy, parenting, not parenting, marriage, cats, why women’s trousers have so many buttons, and anything else that we feel like discussing. With photos. Many of them doctored for maximum hilarity. All are invited. Whether you are welcome is up to you.

Naturally, this is only a tiny selection of the women who inspire or have inspired me at some point in my life. If I listed them all here, this post would never end, so I’ll sign off at that — though not until I mention a few other supremely inspiring women in my life. My late grandmother, Pauline Annie, whose loud, proud, rude, crude Northern voice is forever in my head; my mother — likewise, only without the ‘rude, crude’ part; my awesome colleague Lorna, one of the coolest teachers and most fabulous ladies I have ever had the pleasure to meet; and finally my baby sister, whose International Women’s Day 2011 film (below) is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg of her talents. NOW GO CELEBRATE THE WOMEN IN YOUR LIFE. They’re amazing.

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So I didn’t make it yesterday… don’t judge me!

Firstly some final thoughts on the Sentinel Literary Quarterly poetry contest! The top three winning poems are now up at the Sentinel website, and I’m very pleased to announce that they are: The Real Red Riding Hood by former London Poetry Festival Poet-In-Residence Christian Ward, Acting Blackbird by Roger Elkin and Aquarium by Michael Conley.
Some of the Highly Commended and ‘judge’s choice’ entrants have been in touch to ask why their poems haven’t been posted — never fear, those have been saved for the next print issue of SLQ, which will be available in August. Keep an eye on the SLQ blog for updates!
Finally, you can read my judge’s report, which gives a bit of insight into why I picked out the poems I did, right here. I absolutely loved judging the contest so if anyone wants me to do another one…? I’m also thinking of running a One Night Stanzas poetry contest now I’ve had an insight into how it’s all done. All those in favour, please say ‘aye!’ in the comments box… I’d like to be able to sniff out how much interest it might potentially get!

So what else have I been reading this week?

Curious Pursuits by Margaret Atwood
If you’ve been here before you probably know by now that I’m a massive Atwood fangirl. My first experience of her writing was when I was about fourteen and had to write a book report for my high school English class. My high school library was pretty small and the selection was limited… there was also an age-band system in place (which I just accepted at the time but which now shocks me to the core), so some sections were off-limits to anyone under 16. I wandered aimlessly into the library and picked up the first novel whose cover design appealed to me… and that book was Lady Oracle (this particular edition had a picture of a woman’s long, bright-red hair with sunglasses tangled in it. I’d just dyed my hair red for the first time, so that’s probably what struck me). I utterly loved the book, and moved on almost immediately to The Blind Assassin, which had just won the Booker Prize that year, and I now count it as one of my desert-island, all-time top five novels.
My favourite book of Atwood’s (so far) though is Negotiating with the Dead, a series of lectures on writers and the writing process that later became a printed critical work. It’s the cornerstone of my ongoing PhD thesis and the best book about “being a writer” that I’ve ever read. I’ve been meaning for ages to write a post about it here, and would encourage you all to go out and buy a copy immediately. It was my much-read, much-creased copy of Negotiating with the Dead that Atwood signed for me when I met her (and greatly embarrassed myself) at Edinburgh College of Art a couple of years ago.
So, to cut a long story short, Curious Pursuits has been on my to-read list for a long time. It’s a collection of funny little bits and pieces of writing that Atwood’s collected up and stuck together to make a strange — and of course brilliant — collage of a book. Dating back to early writings, Curious Pursuits includes book reviews, obituaries, critical essays and articles of all shapes and sizes. My copy, which was pristine when I bought it only a few weeks ago, is now a well-used fan of post-it-note page markers. Atwood’s review of The Witches of Eastwick made me want to go out and read some Updike RIGHT THEN; her recollections of travelling in Europe and her relationship with her aunts suddenly made so much stuff from Lady Oracle slot into place, which sent me whirling back to the bookshelf like a dervish, wanting to re-read it. It’s a pretty special book that starts a chain-reaction of MUST READ THAT NEXT AND THEN THAT AND THEN THAT. So er, while you’re out buying Negotiating with the Dead? Better grab yourselves a copy of this, too.

What have you been reading this week?

(Photo by Jennnnyyyy)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

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Just a little one this week as I am mad-busy organising the this collection McEwan Hall poetry film extravaganza (it’s tonight! Get your butt here!) — but I still somehow managed time for some procrastination…

Pig Song: a poem by Margaret Atwood

A gallery of retro Sylvia Plath book covers…

A great quote from Ray Bradbury

A new poem from William Soule

Want to carry Samuel Beckett round your neck?

& the visuals!

Love this video:

Super ninja octopus!

I kind of love Liza Jesse Peterson

Awesome!

Have a great weekend!

(Photos by nardell)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

Subscribe to ONS!