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Zoe Whittall, pictured. Read her short story “Oh, El.”
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I begin to think my fascination [with sharks] is in direct proportion to my preoccupation with ideas of sentimental, obsessive, unrequited, and true love. The hopes and dreams I’ve held around love have an oblique counterpoint. My dread of sharks is my fear of loneliness, vulnerability, violence at the hands of something stronger, unemotional (and hungry). Also in the wings is the fantasy of submission, the danger of longing to be consumed by something strange. … Simply admitting that you’re looking for love means accepting that you want to enter something that can bear you up and break your heart, means needing to take off all your clothes and let go and get in. That’s not easy or dreamy, it’s scary.
Leanne Shapton - Swimming Studies -
Because gay people are forced to have a high awareness about heterosexual cruelty in order to try to avoid it, we know an enormous amount about the structures and functions of homophobia and about the manifestations of the homophobic variant in a wide spectrum of individual heterosexual types. However, heterosexuals spend almost no time thinking about how their behaviour is homophobic, what its impact is on the society and, most importantly, they do not consider its impact on us personally. They retain a false sense of supremacy by not being accountable. Not thinking is one of their privileges. After all, in every system of domination, the dominant group knows only about themselves, while the members of the subordinate group know about their own lives as well as the lives of the dominant group members. So, those with the most power have the least information about how other people live. If straight people were forced to think about and be accountable for their behaviour towards us, they would have to justify their actions. And that would be pretty hard to do.
Sarah Schulman, from Ties That Bind - Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences (The New Press, 2009). -
Now, looking back, I fear that the story of the isolated helpless homosexual was one far more palatable to the corporations who control the reward system in the arts. The more truthful story of the American mass - abandoning families, criminal governments, indifferent neighbours - is too uncomfortable and inconvenient to recall. The story of how gay people who were despised, had no rights, and carried the burden of a terrible disease came together to force the country to change against its will, is apparently too implicating to tell. Fake tales of individual heterosexuals heroically overcoming their prejudices to rescue helpless dying men with AIDS was a lot more appealing to the powers that be, but not at all true.
Sarah Schulman, taken from the afterword of Arsenal Pulp’s re-print version of Schulman’s stellar 1992 novel. Empathy. -
Original Plumbing review of HSFALAP
The wonderful Tom Leger, publisher of Topside Press in NYC, has reviewed HSFALAP on the Original Plumbing magazine blog. I would encourage you to read the whole review here. But if you’re in a scanning mood, here is an excerpt:
“The thing that makes this novel markedly different than almost every other novel ever written in the history of the novel, is that it is written from an insider’s perspective about young trans and queer people … it is an immensely important book. Holding Still might be the first of a new upsurge in literature about trans people – authentic narratives, executed skillfully and received with great acclaim. I want you to read this book and I want you to write a novel, because I want to read more of these. I want trans people to realize that our lives, that our communities, that our worlds are valuable and deserve to be recorded.”
That last line made me tear up a little bit. Thanks Tom! -
I’m looking to speak with people who have visited family members in prison. It’s for research purposes with regards to my next novel and is entirely off the record. I just need to ask you some questions via email. If interested: zoe.whittall@gmail.com
Also? This is a photo of my cats.
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Contributor mini-interview: Elizabeth Marston
Photographer credit: Elizabeth Marston
Elizabeth Marston is a once-and-future academic marooned in the real world. She identifies as a writer-activist, a permaqueer trannydyke and an Alberta survivor. Current projects include The Switch, a trans feminist web-sitcom, and Transist.ca, a trans activist e-mag.
Elizabeth’s piece for Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme is called “Rogue Femininity.” It’s a meditation on femme as a form of badass, rogue, reclaimed femininity.
What’s your perception of the state of femme and butch communities today?
Fragmented, incohate, rich with potential. But many of us (especially those my age and younger) could use more exposure to butch/femme history. We can’t articulate who we are unless we can say who we’ve been.
If you could give your younger self one book to read, what would it be?
Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano. She distinguishes between gender identity (butch, femme, genderqueer, etc.) and subconscious sex (male, female, intersex, etc.). I happen to be both femme and transsexual female, but in my early twenties I tried very hard to deal with my embodiment angst by way of lipgloss, because I didn’t distinguish between these two very different things. This misapprehension begat much anguish, but at least I got to know my way around an eyeliner brush.
If you could say one thing to future butches and femmes, what would it be?
Look for new ways of expanding the concepts of femme and butch. They offer a new and freer way of being oneself, for all people everywhere. But freedom is the sort of thing you have to put your back into.
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I just updated my blog with the exciting news that my second novel, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, has been nominated for TWO Lambda Literary Awards!!! Check here for details: http://www.zoewhittall.blogspot.com/. This is a photo from a shoot for Xtra! mag a long time ago.
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Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme: What Dorothy Allison has to say about Persistence
Writer and femme hero Dorothy Allison read our book. Here’s what she had to say about it:
“Reading Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme is like attending a dinner party with people you never got the chance to talk to before—fascinating, brave, insightful people—some of whom are very…
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OMG, where has this author been all my life? This book is epic! It’s literally the only queer book I’ve ever read and enjoyed. I say this as a queer person; usually, the books that are written by and for our community do nothing for me, make me feel like my life is some sort of a cliche. This book is freaking great.
There’s a long list of things I liked about this book. The narrative style isn’t traditional or easy- there are three main characters, and they all take turns narrating- but Whittall is an incredibly talented and capable author, and she manages to pull it off. Each of the characters’ voices rings true. You could open the book without knowing whose chapter you’re on and know within a sentence or two who’s narrating. Speaking of the characters- they’re easy to relate to, yet realistic and complex. I don’t want to get too spoiler-y, but it’s a love triangle of sorts; usually in these types of stories it’s easy to get sucked into the pattern of hating one or two of the characters, and rooting for the other two or one. Not here. It’s easy to empathize with all three characters here, even though none of them are perfect, and even though I probably wouldn’t like at least one of them if they were a part of my own community.
Also great? She doesn’t play the characters’ queerness for shock value, and she doesn’t make it the central focus of their lives. Also, the transgender central character talks about his identity throughout the book, but he’s not tortured by it, everyone else isn’t obsessed with it; it just is who he is. Brilliant! I’m tired of reading gay/queer books where the main characters obsess over their identity. Who does that, anyway?
Author. Cupcake enthusiast. Introvert.
zoewhittall.blogspot.com
