Category: books & writing

Posted on

Phonies.

Apparently Caulfield was still alive to write Salinger’s obit:

“There will never be another voice like his.” Which is exactly the lousy kind of goddamn thing that people say, because really it could mean lots of things, or nothing at all even, and it’s just a perfect example of why you should never tell anybody anything.

Goddamn if The Onion didn’t nail it exactly, even if, I”m sure, a million crumby people thought of it with them.

Posted on

Double Whammy: Zinn & Salinger

The world has gotten significantly less smart in the past two days: first we lost the people’s historian, Howard Zinn, whose books educated so many of us as to the real legacy of American Populism.

& Today: Salinger.

I can’t come up with anything better to do than dig the heels of my hands into my eyes and sit, fully dressed, in a bathroom stall, with my own grief. You remember the scene: it’s from Franny & Zoey.

Let me say right here & now that I don’t care if he wrote or what he wrote since he’s been in exile. It’s not like there have been any American authors that even touch his four books’ worth of genius.

Posted on

SistersTalk Radio Interview

I’ll be on SistersTalk radio this Wednesday, January 6th, at 7PM Central time.  & Yes, they’re on Facebook. They recently interviewed Rachel Kramer Bussell, erotica empress.

Other upcoming for me: a reading at Appleton Public Library on March 3rd, and I’m doing a reading for the Fox Cities Book Festival on April 12th. My best calendar is still on the front page of my author site, www.helenboydbooks.com (along with a list of past appearances, etc.)

Posted on

Beautiful Blogger

Staci Hunter over at Femulate decided I’m a beautiful blogger. Thank you, Staci! It’s a nice way to start the year, and I do have a scintillating personality, at least.

(Is “femulate” not one of the best names for a blog ever?!)

I do have important responsibilities that come with this honor.

  1. thank the person who chose you.
  2. link to her site.
  3. put award on blog.
  4. enumerate 7 interesting things about myself.
  5. chose 7 other people to be Beautiful Bloggers.

So those seven interesting things:

  1. I have been hugged by both Andy Patridge of XTC and Marc Almond of Soft Cell.
  2. I published my first piece of writing – a poem about a kite – when I was in grade school. It was some national children’s arts thing.
  3. I am, in my heart, a fiction writer, even though I have not yet published fiction in any major venue.
  4. I have made my own holiday cards for the past 20 years, only ever missing 2008.
  5. My first boyfriend was named Jason. Also, my last.
  6. I was volunteer staff at the big “comeback” Earth Day of 1989 in Central Park.
  7. I have been asked more than once if I do phone sex. (I don’t.)

So now, the seven people whom I’ve chosen:

  1. Mercedes Allen of Dented Blue Mercedes
  2. Kate Bornstein of Kate Bornstein-ness
  3. Charlie Vazquez of Latino Musings on Literature (“beautiful” is not a gender-specific term, peeps)
  4. Monica Roberts of TransGriot
  5. Caprice Bellefleur’s Glob
  6. Mattilda of Nobody Passes
  7. Jillian Weiss of Transgender Workplace Diversity

So thank you again, Staci, and thanks to all of these bloggers for writing so regularly, and about such interesting things, and for being beautiful while doing so.

Posted on

George, Meet James

Wow, this is depressing to read. It’s also not even a little surprising.

In light of all that, then, I shouldn’t have been surprised that using a male pseudonym had such a dramatic effect on Chartrand’s career. Death threats and sexually degrading commentary directed at women writers seem very 21st century — so modern! so fresh! — but being paid half as much for the same work? Landing fewer jobs? Receiving more criticism and less respect? That just sounds so old-fashioned. I learned about women posing as men to get work in elementary school history lessons, not when I went to grad school for writing. The thought that if I’d tried writing as, say, Kevin Harding, I might have earned far more money, opportunity and authority than I have, is almost as inconceivable as it is chilling. Since the Brontë days, says Chartrand, “we’ve had feminism. We have the right to vote, to own property, to be members of Parliament and Congress, to get a job, and to be the main breadwinner of the family. And yet apparently we haven’t gotten past those 19th century stigmas.”

Here’s the original.

Maybe I should have been George and not Helen after all.

Posted on

Wisconsin Author?

Me?!

But yes, I’m going to be part of a ‘Meet Wisconsin Authors’ series at the Appleton Public Library in March of next year. Details TBA.