A Restructure is Needed
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Hi Dear Readers,
Welcome to the first CURATION STATION of December! Tbh, I may need to re-think how I’m doing these. On the one hand, I really love putting these lists together, but on the other hand, they take a lot of time and if the stats mean anything, it doesn’t look like my readers enjoy them as much as I enjoy making them. This might be fine, but since I started a new job and am very exhausted and overwhelmed right now, I may need to restructure some things.
I’ve seen people put these types of lists behind a paywall. I’ve seen people make them smaller and put them at the end of their weekly/bi-weekly essay. I’ve seen different structurings of it and I would love to know which structure you would like to see here in this space. Please fill out the poll below! Let me know if it doesn’t make sense!
On that note, I’ll get right into the goods. Thank you for bearing with me while I restructure and reconfigure things here!
Love you, mean it.
xL<3
Reading List 🔖
For Generations, African American Women Have Used Quilting as a Powerful Tool of Survival, Resistance, and Artistic Expression - Colony Little
For African Americans, the practice of quilting not only preserves memory through the use of repurposed fabrics, but also plays a vital role in protest, as artists have used—and continue to use—the medium to assert their voice to claim identity, tackle racism, and confront sexism. Practitioners of textile arts fuse material and message in expressions of freedom and liberation.
What, Exactly, Is Queer Literature? - A. E. Osworth
When people imagine queer literature, sometimes, I think, that no matter who is doing the thinking, the category is reductive. Even if we’re talking about the queer imagination of queer literature, the imagined bracket begins and ends with representation. How gay a novel is comes down to the queer characters doing the coming out or the getting hate crimed. How sufficiently do they represent the queer monolith (of which there is none)? How do they give voice to the discourse of the moment (of which there is always too much)? And I understand! I understand there’s been a dearth of novels about queer people, that it is still radical to put a gay person at the center of a story. But I also think we have the right to stretch our wings a bit on that definition, to talk about queer literature in a more vast way, one that allows for a gargantuan category full of contradiction.
Teens, Trauma, and the Future of Libraries - Miss Julie
When you put these traumatized teens with differently thinking brains into a library that has never been good at serving teen patrons, what do you think is going to happen? Repeated negative interactions with library staff. Teens being targeted by security staff as soon as they walk in the door. Warnings. Bans. Suspensions. Calling the police.
Ritual raging: why so many women are turning to therapeutic screaming - Serena Smith
The idea of screaming as a therapeutic emotional release isn’t especially new. ‘Primal therapy’ began to gain traction in the early 1970s following the publication of psychotherapist Arthur Janov’s first book, The Primal Scream. Janov theorised that repressed emotions cause psychological issues, so he encouraged people in primal therapy to let go of these pent-up feelings in whatever way they wanted: such as talking, crying and, often, screaming.
The Honesty of Pornography - Kathleen Lubey
Having spent years in library archives reading obscene works, I’ve found that pornography says many things at once. It can make us think. It can urge people to consider sex from multiple perspectives and think about how it shapes our regard for other people. The actions captured in pornography convey more than they seem to – as all cultural works do. Dworkin’s indictment is so sweeping that she claims pornography, from Greek antiquity to her present, levelled all women to the same status, making them into the ‘lowest class of whore’, the ‘brothel slut available to all male citizens’. There is much to challenge in this thinking, not least its denigration of sex work, but also its lack of precision, its unsubstantiated view that all pornography celebrates the extreme subjugation of women.
The Pioneering Black Sci-Fi Writer Behind the Original Wakanda - Alison Lanier
Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins was a groundbreaking novelist, playwright, performer, orator, thinker and activist—and she’s credited with inventing the setting that eventually became Wakanda in her science fiction. But while her imaginative creations live on in massive-franchise form, her name isn’t widely known.
Books of Note 📚
Fat Off, Fat on: A Big Bitch Manifesto - Clarkisha Kent (nonfiction)
Before I Let Go - Kennedy Ryan (fiction)
The Ones We Burn - Rebecca Mix (young adult)
Luminous: Living Things That Light Up the Night - Julia Kuo (children’s book)
summonings - Raena Shirali (poetry)
Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer - Julia Cameron (self-help)
[If you order any of the books above or any listed on my Bookshop site, a percentage goes to local bookstores and I get a small commission. Thank you for not ordering from Amazon!]
Playlist 🎵
“Beach House” - Carly Rae Jepsen
”Pale Blue Light” - Jessie Ware
”Replay” - Kimbra
”Til The Moon Don’t Shine” - Le Ren
”We Should Be Together” - Rosie Thomas (ft. Sufjan Stevens)
Mood Board 💓
Self-Care + Good Things ☕
Weighted blanket each evening after being onsite at new job. Somatic therapy. Audio notes with crushes. Feeling so welcomed and well cared for at new job. Christmas tree season. Hallmark Christmas movie season. Christmas movies from my childhood.
Audio notes with crushes ☺️