Making space, answering with 🔥🔥🔥🔥, and a giveaway
Hey friends. The wind is howling but it's also moving around all the furniture on our terrace that we* moved back yesterday because spring, it's here in New York City. It's happening. I believe. I will be complaining about humidity before we know it. This morning when I was walking the dog and stepping between all the bits of branches the wind had shaken loose onto the sidewalk I was so optimistic I thought well, this is just the weather making a little space.Â
*my husband and child, while I was at a bookstore with our other child
Nice Things About Back Talk
Back Talk is coming to the UKÂ on May 17th. Have friends in with cool accents who live in places like London? Sydney? British Territories I can't name? Tell them to get a copy.Â
Ann Friedman, one half of the best best friend team in podcasting, Call Your Girlfriend, recommended Back Talk in the show's Spring Books Episode. CYG is truly one of the best podcasts for smart people everywhere. I texted one of my best friends and we, two brilliant women, had this very calm and articulate exchange about it:
Speaking of good things in your ears, do you know Back Talk is available on audio?Â
Using My Words/A Giveaway
Super excited that one of the stories** from Back Talk will be kicking off this warm-weather bout of Season of Stories, a series of stories delivered to your inbox in 4 parts, Tuesday-Friday. Starts on April 17th with my story and with stories by Joy Williams, Victor LaValle, Sam Shepard, and others to follow. Sign up here.Â
**Bonus useless content/giveaway: the story that will appear was, in a different form, my MFA application story. If you don't have insider information and can guess which one this is (before it lands in your inbox next week, but nice try, slick one), I will send a copy of BACK TALK in paperback or audio to someone you love. (It could be you. Nothing wrong with loving yourself.) I'll sign it, if you're into that kind of thing.Â
Reading, Thinking, Feeling
Not gonna lie, I've been in a reading rut ever since The Great Believers ---good books make tough acts to follow--- but I also kept busy building my reading list for my Catapult class on how to build a short story. There are always some I love but couldn't find room for, like Laura van den Berg's "Antartica" or Elizabeth Tallent's "Get it Back for Me." But there are also stories I get to move into the rotation. Two new stories I'm teaching came from collections I really loved this year: the title story from Kristen Arnett's "Felt in the Jaw" which you can read here and order the whole book (which you should, because I found it impossible to choose just one of these brilliant, slowly-heart cracking stories) here, from Split Lip Press. The other is Karen Shepard's "Don't Know Where, Don't Know When," which you can read here before you go and order her collection, Kiss Me Someone, from Tin House Books here. When I read this book I thought, when I am a brave grown up, I'd like to write a collection like this.Â
Speaking of how short stories are excellent, this whole "I don't really like short stories" thing that readers like to try and convince themselves of blows my mind. (And my friends, if you write them, you have to read them.)Â Three out of five nominees for the NYPL's Young Lions Award are stories. The winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction last year? Stories. The NBCC Leonard Prize? Stories. JUST SAYING.Â
We bought a giant couch. I am really happy about it. Now the whole family can read together peacefully. Yes, this is a humblebrag.Â
I'm all in for dresses-no-tights season, but really not thrilled about shaving-my-legs-in-a-stall-shower-all-the-time season. I've found the limits of my fuck the patriarchy attitude stop at my own body hair, though every time I spot a teen or 20-something with unshaven pits or legs I get a tinge of hope that the madness will stop, but then also remember that the pay gap is very real and stuff like grooming factors into trying to make it in a world that's often stacked against you. Did I mention fuck the patriarchy?Â
While we're here, you should really read excellent essay by R.O. Kwon in The Cut on how she uses eyeshadow to say fuck the patriarchy and question white supremacy:
"People often assume I’m harmless, someone who’ll let them get away with unacceptable behavior, and what I hope to convey, a little, even if it’s just with a centimeter of extra makeup, is that I’m not, I won’t."
  🔥🔥🔥🔥 It also made me put on some eyeliner like the warpaint it can be this week, too.Â
Where to Find Me
April 22nd (that's next Sunday, my friends): Reading with the brilliant Xhenet Aliu, author of BRASS, at KGB Bar, 7pm.Â
May 17th: Reading at Freya Project at Elsa in Brooklyn (fundraiser in support of Nile Sisters)
May 20th: Reading at Sunday Salong at Von Bar in ManhattanÂ
That's it for now. Go read some short stories. Maybe line your eyes first though? Or don't. Do what you gotta do.
Talk soon,
Danielle