Editor David Sterry & I are doing some East Coast readings from Hos, Hookers, Callgirls & Rentboys. Friday night at Atomic Books in Baltimore was a huge success. Today we’re on to Richmond, and Tuesday night we’ll be at Busboys & Poets in DC.
08
Nov
09
mini-tour
23
Oct
09
Feminist Sex in Baltimore
Great turnout at our Feminist Sex panel in Baltimore a few nights ago. It was fun trying to define what it means to be both feminist and sex-positive with my intelligent, fierce, and funny friends Shira Tarrant & Cara Bruce. Thanks to an exuberant audience and nice organization on the part of Red Emma’s bookstore, we had a lively discussion (in a church, no less!) A gift of apples from a friend make for a nice centerpiece with our books.
17
Oct
09
Where The Wild Things Are
Went to see the movie last night, which is based on the Maurice Sendak book–both are great, but being a harDCore kid of the 80s, when I hear the title I can’t help but think of this great Blackout Records compilation. Remember compilations? Do people still do them? One of my students is making a hip hop comp, and asked a classmate if he wanted to be on it, so I guess so. This one brings back memories.
14
Oct
09
Rest in Peace, Brendan Mullen
I was very sad to hear of the passing of punk and fellow promoter/writer Brendan Mullen on Tuesday. He founded the Masque club in LA, spawning grounds for numerous bands; he also authored We Got the Neutron Bomb, Lexicon Devil and Live at the Masque. I grew up in DC, highly influenced by 80s hardcore, with my husband a few years younger and very involved in the 90s wave. Two decades older than us, Brendan never gave us any of that “older-school-than-you” attitude when we met him while living in LA. He always treated us as part of the tribe, despite our age and coast-affiliation. Curmudgeonly, funny, and bright, he was a punk rocker through and through. I last saw him in 2007, when I had a gig interviewing people on camera at the Masque reunion show in Los Angeles. His passing reminds me that we are the best documentarians of our own scene, and that we will not live forever. This inspires me to get to work on getting my own punk book out there. I think Brendan would dig that.
05
Oct
09
I heart New York!
Just returned from a fabulous reading in NYC, for the anthology Hos, Hookers, Callgirls and Rentboys. Following are scenes from the Sex Worker Literati reading. It was good to be a in a room full of friends and fellow writers. Pictured below are Audacia Ray, Jennifer Blowdryer, David Sterry & myself. It was my first time reading this piece to an audience and they were very kind. My husband and I spent the next day eating at wonderful vegan restaurants and walking our asses off. Thanks to the Bolt Bus, we just may be able to do this more often!
29
Sep
09
National Book Festival
Had fun author-stalking at the National Book Festival on the Mall Saturday. It was a soggy day, so I didn’t get to stay for everyone I wanted to see (sorry, Tim O’brien and Judy Blume!) but I did catch DC novelist/Wire writer George Pelecanos, who gave an inspiring talk, mostly plugging other peoples’ books. The one that captured my interest was A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival and Coming of Age in Prison, by R. Dwayne Betts. I haven’t read it yet but his story made me miss teaching at the juvenile day treatement center in North Carolina. Convincing kids with nothing who’ve been kicked out of school that a low-paying journalism job is the best thing that ever happened to me was almost impossible, but knowing them and encouraging their infinite creativity was worthwhile (even when angrily storming out, on the worst days). Pelecanos also reminded me of my itch for local journalism, which I had the opportunity to do lots of while living in NC. Hopefully DC has a space for me.
22
Sep
09
Feminist Sex
New reading just confirmed! I’m so excited to be on a panel with my friend Shira Tarrant, author of Men and Feminism (that’s just her latest) with friend and fellow author Cara Bruce, discussing what it means to be both anti-sexist and sex-positive…all in Baltimore at Red Emma’s Bookstore & Cafe–the hometown of John Waters, the “Pope of Trash.” It all happens on Moday October 20th. Can’t wait to see what happens!
11
Sep
09
new issue of Crossing Borders
The new issue of Crossing Borders magazine (#39) is available for download. Since being invited to Denmark as a Language Editor last year, I have continued to work with CB from afar. They are a Denmark-based NGO focused on creating dialogue space and offering media skills to youth and educators living in conflict zones. In 1991 I took a Journalism 101 class at the University of Maryland. One of my classmates was a Danish nanny, living in the States for a year. We bonded over our love of words, leading to a beautiful friendship as well as this unexpected opportunity with Crossing Borders, years later. CB’s director is an African guy living in Denmark, our editor is a Dane living in Turkey, the designer lives in North Carolina, we’ve got the Language Editor (me), in Washington, DC, almost all of the contributors live in Africa and the Middle East, and the magazine is printed in Israel. How’s that for globalization?
I was never much of a dater. I’ve always had lots of friends and easily found boyfriends within my music scene. I’m 40 and met my husband when I was 26, narrowly missing the whole internet-dating thing. Admittedly, I am one of those people who made fun of people who sought human contact in this way. So it’s a little funny to me that I have been teaching online for two years now. Of course teaching is not the same as looking for a soul mate, but it is still communicating over the transom of the Internet. Though I do love looking at human faces, making dramatic gestures and using humor and innuendo in “on-ground” classes (as they’re known in some circles), I enjoy teaching online a lot more than I expected to. Real human connections are made–especially in creative nonfiction classes, where students are sharing so much of their lives and themselves on the page.
The online classroom may be advantageous to memoirists and shy writers, allowing them anonymity that’d be unimaginable in a traditional class. It has also opened me up to students worldwide, offering a more diverse classroom than usual. (One of my childhood dreams was to “know someone in every country.”) But what a joy it was to recently learn that one of our Life’s a Bitch Books students actually lives nearby in Arlington! I met her for lunch, where we joked that we felt like it was a match.com date but were both happy that we “actually looked like our pictures.” Whew. She was lovely and brainy and full of ambition–all that I could ever want in a student and fellow writer-in-the-trenches! I hope to meet more of my online cohorts, some day, some way. It seems totally possible as this big world just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
30
Aug
09
Twying to Twitter
I’m twying out this Twitter thing. I think it means I’m “tweeting.” All the Ts make it tempting to talk like Sylvester the Cat for some reason, but I will resist. Can’t say that I fully understand how this is supposed to work yet; right now it just looks like a bunch of people chasing each other in a circle, but hey, what do I know? If you want writing-related news, quotes and info on cool calls for submissions, follow my company @LABBooks. If you want to know what’s on my mind or keep track of my upcoming appearances and published work, follow me @shawnakenney. Who knows? Tawking twoughout the day might be TWEET! (Sorry).
