Everywhere I go, Margaret Atwood has already been…
Here I am thinking I’m all original and what not with my villainess obsession (See here for reminder of what I’m referring to) – and I randomly picked up a book at the library to read at my residency, Atwood’s hodgepodge book of essays Writing with Intent – and what do I see but a whole chapter called “Spotty Handed Villainesses” – talking about why it’s not anti-feminist to create non-100-percent-sugar-and-spice female characters, the importance of strong female villains, etc. Hrmph. Then, yesterday, I bought her new collection The Tent – and, after spending ten years writing poems (some of which will appear in the aforementioned book, Becoming the Villainess) about the rather obscure (I thought) myth of Procne and Philomel, what should I find but an Atwood retelling of the Procne/Philomel story called “The Nightingale.”
Speaking of sci-fi mistresses of goodness, I got the pleasure of seeing Ursula LeGuin at the residency, where she proceeded to rant about the lack of teachers teaching literary fantasy and sci-fi books, which she feels have been unfairly ghettoized.
And, while I was gone, I received contributor copies of the wonderful anthology of the erotic, The Bedside Guide to the No Tell Motel, which not only looks great but is a lot of fun to read, and the new issue of American Poetry Journal, which has one of my favorite poems (don’t we all have personal favorites among our poems?) called “The Conversation” – about a female comic book superhero breaking up with her boyfriend. Anyway, run out and get both immediately.
I also noticed that sadly, none of the poet candidates for the Nat’l Book Critics Circle were women. Sigh.