Sex, Lies and Mentoring: What’s a Woman to Do?

Writer Paisley Rekdal has a post on her blog about the problematic nature of finding mentors for young women here: http://paisleyrekdal.blogspot.com/2011/10/on-writing-mentors.html?spref=fb

I read it with interest, because I, too, as a young female, have been fairly cautious – maybe overly so – when talking with older male writers – always a bit suspicious, I’m afraid, of ulterior motives…but something about getting a little older, a little closer to forty, makes this all less of an issue, and of course being married to a big, scary-looking guy who’s pretty much around all the time helps, too. So I’m not quite as reflexively self-protective as I used to be.

And I have had good experiences with female professors, reaching to help out when and how they can, even if their time and resources tend to be more limited (as Paisley points out.)

But, how common is this female inability to accept mentoring? How many women writers has it hurt? Has it hurt me? What about you?

To make matters more complicated, when I read this post, I was watching the British movie “Tamara Drewe,” basic on the graphic-novel-based-on-the-Thomas-Hardy-Novel Far From The Madding Crowd. In it, the young female protagonist, in a pique because the guy she likes is with someone else when she happens to be free, beds the oozingly-creepy-older-male-writer – even though he’s married – and gratefully accepts his older-male-writer writing advice. Ick. I can’t help but have a visceral reaction, maybe because I’ve seen it too many times in real life. I mean, we ladies can get writing advice without doling out sex, right? Right? I was disappointed to see it in a (rare) movie about a female writer. (The philandering older male writer character, spoiler alert, bites it. Hardy was awfully hard on his philanderers, though he was famous for that activity himself.)

So what has your experience been with mentorship? Have you been overly cautious, or have you found mentors at all? I was thinking that for me, perhaps friends have been more important than mentors, because friends are the ones that stick with you through the bad times, encourage you when you’re down, help you write and send out in the day-to-day activity of being a writer. It also made me think about how I need to be willing to help others – I think of myself still as a struggling – what is that word…”emerging” writer…but I think I might be able to help more people if I made more of an effort. I’m happy to get a chance in the next week to lead a high school student workshop in Redmond (see more info here) but I would like to do even more of that kind of work.

What Poetry Can Learn From the Pops

Glenn and I went to the symphony yesterday for the first time since…well, I used to go all the time when I was in junior high and high school, because I was friends with the daughter of one of the conductors of the Cincinnati Symphony and therefore got to go for free, and really enjoyed especially the outdoor pops shows with all their fireworks and fanfare…and when I lived in Richmond, VA, I got to go to all kinds of cultural events, opera, ballet, symphony – for free because I was a reviewer for some digital media outlets. But, in Seattle, I’ve rarely had the time or money – or the combination of both – to take advantage of some of the local cultural wonders, so it had been a while. So finally, when the Seattle Symphony pops had an “Sci-Fi” event, we bought a couple of tickets and went. It was a little pricey for us, but we always talk about supporting the arts, so…

We had lovely seats down by the orchestra, and they played selections from John Williams (Star Wars) and the Planets, among other things (a Thriller arrangement with zombie-dressed amateur dancers?) The energetic conductor, Victor Vanacore, gamely sang the words to “Ghostbusters.” Even better, if you are a Star Trek: Next Generation fan, Jonathon Frakes got up and introduced each piece. (I have never noticed this before, but sci-fi movie themes tend towards the bombastic and war-like – every piece sounded a bit like a march, a bit like the 1812 overture.)
I was thinking, as I looked around the hall crowded, yes, with the gray-haired, but also a surprising number of children and youngish types, that this was “symphony evangelism.” Sure, it got children to listen to some of the classics, but each piece was short enough for a child’s attention span (or the average techie’s) and there were visual cues – a charming host, zombies, etc – to help keep the audience entertained.
I’m betting it was a lot more crowded than the average symphony show. And it got me thinking – if the symphony knows how to reach out to the crowds, why not poets? Keep things short, have some banter in between readings, and maybe invite some zombies…and hope they come back for the serious stuff, the Stravinsky or Bach.

Reunions, Poemeleon, and inspiring reading…

First, let me tell you to go read something from the new issue of one of my favorite online journals, Poemeleon: http://www.poemeleon.org/table-of-contents-6/
I may have a poem in there. It is secretly one of my favorite poems ever. It may also be one of my geekiest poems ever. Also, poems by Sherman Alexie, my friends Michelle Bitting and Ronda Broatch, and Ann Fisher-Wirth, among others.

Now that you’re back, let me confess that this weekend I was supposed to be at my 20th (yes, 20th!) high school reunion. In celebration of this missed event, I watched one of the best ever episodes of 30 Rock, called “Reunion.” In it, Liz Lemon discovers she was not the oppressed nerd she always thought she had been, but instead, a cruel bully that everyone feared and hated. Pretty hilarious reflection on how our memories – especially youthful memories – tend to be not only narcissistic but inaccurate. You may remember how much you hated so-and-so, the popular girl, but she will remember how she tried to be friends with you and you made a cutting remark about her mother’s drug addiction. So, I am missing that treasured event this weekend. See the downsides of living thousands of miles from the land of your Midwestern middle-childhood?

Another guilty secret: I am one of those people that spends the extra $5 to buy the British versions of magazines like Vogue and Bazaar. And here is why: the fashion spreads occasionally are based on things like the plot of The Snow Queen or Victorian poets. Also, they contain interviews with writers, rundowns, with photos, of writer’s conferences, and even, once in a while, really good little pieces of fiction. This October issue of British Harper’s Bazaar has a genius little contemporary re-take on Wuthering Heights, called “The Heathcliff” by Jeanette Winterson. Go out and get it and read it. Love! The last lines are
“The waitress smiles at me and looks at my book. ‘I love that song by Kate Bush.’ I ask her if she has read the novel. ‘No, but everybody knows it don’t they? It’s a love story.’
I am not sure that it is.”
Among other secrets: I sometimes enjoy writer’s books of essays on writing more than their actual fiction or poetry or whatever. This may be the case with Margaret Atwood, whose new set of essays on the sci-fi/speculative genre, In Other Worlds, made it to the top of my reading list. I love one essay where she talks about creating, yes, bunny superheroes. Her famous resistance to calling her own work “science fiction” is also discussed.

Guilty Secrets: The Introvert/Extrovert Writer’s Dilemma

Geek Girl Con – When Poets and Geeks Collide

We had unexpectedly beautiful weather for today’s appearances at Geek Girl Con. The sun shone, the temperature went all the way up to 64 degrees (it’s been in the fifties and rainy) and Mt Rainier came out and greeted us as we drove into the city.
Geek Girl Con was a lot of fun. I did a signing, sold a couple of books, the presentation went well, and I found a couple of really cool things – like Ada’s Bookstore and Tracy who runs the charmingly named Geektastic Pentameter. I also got to meet Wonder Woman comic writer Gail Simone, who was quoted in my first book’s poem “Women in Refrigerators.” The crowd was friendly, the conference was sold out and they were turning people away by noon, and in general people seemed to have a really good time. And now the University Bookstore carries both my books (in case you’re in Seattle looking for them..)
My real purpose in going to cons (this is my fourth) is to help bring poetry to audiences that might not know that there is poetry out there that might appeal to them. Call it “poetry evangelism.” And I like it! The intersection where poet meets geek!
Here are my funny stories – one person told me they really liked my costume (a black jacket, a pink sequin shirt, jeans, and pink Uggs.) Now, a lot of people dressed up as Leia, anime characters, etc…but I was only dressed as a poet!
The other funny story is when a gentleman taking video of the conference came up to me as I was doing my signing and asked if I was comic book and television writer (from such series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly) Jane Espenson. This led me to realize 1. no one ever knows what writers look like and 2. I could claim to be a famous other writer person and no one would know! But when I admitted I was “just a poet” and told the videographer who I was, he decided to go ahead and film something from me about the conference anyway, which I did a hilariously bad job with. Glenn got a shot of this and you can see the camera in the picture above.
Then we snuck out to enjoy some of the sights of downtown Seattle in the sun. This is me at the famous “Black Hole Sun” and Glenn across the street at the Asian Art Museum: