Tag Archives: sexuality

Q3: Is POINTE, CLAW a love story?

As POINTE, CLAW leaps into the world, I thought I might answer some questions posed by readers…

Q3: Is POINTE, CLAW a love story?

In POINTE, CLAW, I wanted to explore intimate female friendships and the way in which the lines between friend and lover can shift and blur. Friendships between women can have a depth and an intensity that is really remarkable.

In a “typical” love story (whatever that is), attraction often comes first. There’s surging physical electricity that compels two people to want to spend time together and to want to know each other better. But the reverse can be true as well. Friendship can deepen and emotional intimacy can lead to attraction and then physical intimacy.

The relationship between Jessie and Dawn in POINTE, CLAW is intense. They knew each other as children and reconnect on the verge of adulthood. They careen back together when each is at an absolutely crucial moment that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. The deep connection they share drives the choices they make moving forward.

In my mind, it is a love story, although not in the way you might think. I don’t want to say more for risk of spoilers, but let me just say that I was really happy to see POINTE, CLAW recommended by The Horn Book as a love story for Pride Month. Reviewer Katie Bircher called the book an “intense nonlinear exploration of love and loss.” Read more here.

 

 

Booklover’s Burlesque–Come Curious, Leave Transformed

loungeI write frequently about claiming space—space to create, space to protest, space to explore sexuality. On a day-to-day scale, claiming space is about getting an entire seat on the bus to yourself or calling out microagressions or expressing your own desires. On the scale of a life, it’s about staking out our territory in the world and claiming the right to be our true selves.

One of the things that I hoped to accomplish when I put together THE V-WORD was to create a space for conversations about who we are sexually and who we want to be sexually. I wanted to break through the wall of “nice girls don’t” and “boys will be boys” to reach a truer place.

Reading THE V-WORD was supposed to feel like sitting down with a smart group of older sisters or aunties and realizing that our sexual selves don’t need to be shoved in a closet. It wasn’t supposed to be erotic or titillating.

So why—you might ask—am I celebrating the publication of THE V-WORD with a burlesque show? Young adult readers can’t even attend. And talk about titillating… We’ve all seen those pictures of Josephine Baker and Bettie Page—va-va-voom!

Well here’s the deal, when we get sexual with someone else, we bring our whole selves to the table—our emotions, our desires, our bodies, and our baggage. For many, how we feel about our bodies and how we claim space to inhabit those bodies can be pretty conflicted.

What I love about modern burlesque is that it empowers performers to celebrate their bodies—scrawny, curvy, old, young, variously abled—it’s all there on the stage to delight and yes, to titillate. They are performing for an audience, and yes, the performers want you to love it. But burlesque is just as much for performers as for the audience.

I love this TEDx talk by Lillian Bustle (definitely watch the whole thing and read this profile)! She says that when she saw her first burlesque performance she was blown away by the “daring, creative, funny women of all shapes and sizes [who looked] like they could walk through fire.” She wanted the confidence to claim the territory of her body and to love it. Lillian became a burlesque performer and says it is her “courage reference,” which means ”doing something brave and keeping that feeling in your pocket for times when you’re not feeling so brave anymore.”

Burlesque is far more than striptease. It is a form of creative expression that supposes, as Lillian says, that “Being beautiful is a decision that you make. Most of us sit around waiting for permission, for affirmation, for some other [person] to swoop in and tell us that we’re worthy, that we’re beautiful. It doesn’t have to be like that … you get to wake up one day and decide that you’re beautiful.”

If you believe girls and women should be able to explore, discover, and own their sexuality without shame, then COME to Booklover’s Burlesque: The V-Word on Friday, April 8th, at Crush Bar! You can help support the movement of encouraging young women to find, fight for, and use their voices when it comes to their sexual lives.

Come curious.
Leave transformed.

(And don’t forget to get your tickets in advance!)

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Readings by Amber Keyser, Sara Ryan, Kate Gray, and others!

Performances by Fannie Fuller, Lily Le Fauve, Judy Patootie,
Honey Le Fleur, Paige Rustles, and Lacy Knickers!

Books available for purchase!

BEYOND MAGENTA and the power of story-telling

This book…

Oh. Sigh. Wow!  I loved it so much.

It reminded me yet again of the power of telling our true stories.  The young people who tell their stories in BEYOND MAGENTA by Susan Kuklin captured me, not with their fancy prose, but with the deep truth of their own personal experiences.  I want to hug every single one of them for being brave enough to be themselves in the world.  That’s hard for all of us sometimes and double hard for those who don’t fit easily into any of society’s little boxes.  And I want to thank them for letting me in. Bravo to photographer and author Susan Kuklin for making this book happen.

I am lucky to live a life full of stories.  I’m grateful to those who surround me with powerful true narratives especially Antonio Sacre and Lawrence Huff and The Moth and Story Corp and all the memorists whose books I’ve devoured and the documentarians who film our obsessions and to Laurie Halse Anderson for making YA a force for healing through SPEAK and her work with RAINN.

Take a moment today to honor stories—tell one on Facebook, buy Susan’s book, donate to RAINN in honor of sexual assault awareness month, or listen to someone’s truth.

This is how we rewrite the world.