Topside Press

Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian, “Why I Don’t Want to Be a Queer Book Detective Anymore (Although I Do Still Want to Be Harriet the Spy)”

Apropos of the conversation the other day between HBBO and Shayvaalski about representation and writing marginalized characters for a privileged audience.

Also, I’ve seen Binnie’s name being thrown around like confetti almost daily for the last month. I’m special-ordering her novel right now for the library.

(via peninsulamamoenam)

WELL SAID.

In addition.

One thing I’ve learned from my love affair with Modernism, is that there is power in insisting that your art be taken on its own terms. Most of my favorite novels had, as one of their explicit goals, the creation of a new way to use language in the new (post-WWI) world. And they did not apologize for that. The old tools were broken, and they took seriously the need to create new ones that worked for themselves and their experience, without reference to whether it worked for their parents, or Arnold Bennett, or Mrs. Humphrey Ward down at the Times Literary Supplement. It was vital to them that they create art that matched their experience and their internal vision. So they created it.

I’m sure not saying that’s the only way to write or the only way to take your writing seriously. But I think in modern American culture “taking yourself seriously as a writer” has come to be synonymous with “writing something that will sell to the mainstream.” If you’re not doing that you’re viewed as pompous, or a dilettante. But commercial viability is not the only portion of art-making that can be taken seriously. Not by a long shot.

I keep thinking about the rise of the Christian Right, in the 80s. A relatively small group of people within the US Republican party made HUGE political inroads in the country at large, as well as moving their own party dramatically to the right, within an alarmingly short period of time. They did it, in large part, by aiming high and insisting on defining their own terms. I mean, I disagree with these people on just about everything, but you’ve got to hand it to them: the term “pro-life” is a brilliant piece of propaganda; it’s one that had the left playing catch-up for DECADES, while abortion rights were rapidly eroded all over the country. And if you’re constantly on defense rather than offense in this kind of battle, you can only ever hope to break even, never ahead.

I don’t want queer people to be in the same position vis-a-vis literature, as the left has been to the abortion debate. I don’t want us to be constantly begging at the door of the mainstream for acceptance and understanding. I want a queer literary culture so rich and deep, so vividly-realized, so true to the lived experience of queer humans—be that of fluid gender; of diverse attraction; of diverse practice; of sex as an integral and messy part of human experience; of relationships darker and brighter and more complicated than normative happy-ever-afters—that its importance in the larger literary fabric becomes, on its own terms, undeniable.

(via havingbeenbreathedout)

Hey Blue look, SUPPORT FOR YOUR THEORY OF WRITING.

(via shayvaalski)