May 2004

Well, once again, instead of so much ranting, this is more of a "muse." Your editor's thoughts on stuff in general.

The Winter 03 issue of the zine got a short shrift this year. Andrew was out of town for six months and I was travelling to see him many weekends. Then there's the "will-it-ever-be-done" dissertation. I had good intentions, but very little past the work Book Review Editor/Goddess Natasha did actually got done. So I'm making up for that in the Summer issue-- we're going to have a bunch of new stuff, with any luck, in addition to the over 30 book reviews. Great author interviews, scholarly articles, and a new committment to getting future scholars to work on a series of guest edited issues.

Some of you know about my blog-- my contribution to the online fad of posting a public journal for anyone to read. I've done a lot of work in it in the last year, and found that it's a format that I really enjoy. I used to keep a diary long long ago, filled with the tortured ramblings of a tortured young woman-- but it's been years since I did it that much. And writing for a real public audience is fascinating-- what do you leave out? What do you include? Sometimes it's a bit too personal. Some of it is very silly. Sometimes it is very serious. The blog is autobiographical, and one day, will lead to a paper that I'll write on the process of being both academic & not-so-academic on the web. Not yet. (Dissertation. Dissertation. Dissertation). But soon. The dissertation is well on its way-- it's maybe halfway done now. (At least, the first draft). In fact, this issue is (hopefully) going to contain a series of Q&A's between myself and several other "feminist bloggers." It's not the long study I'd like to do someday, but it's a start, and an interesting one at that.

One of the things I recently did as part of the blog was that through reading another very intersting blog, I found this website, through Snoop Dogg's site (I know, rappers & misogyny-- it's complicated) this thing called the Shizzolater. I thought it might be fun to "Shizzolate" women writers. Here's my favorite bit-- what would Emily Dickinson's quote from the main page sound like if she were hanging out with rappers? (It's a graphic-- so you can't edit it. But you can do it yourself to whatever webpage you want, at the URL above). I think it's kind of fun to look at. It also definitely bears some thought in academic circles-- the idea of a meme started by a rapper, which populates a bunch of people's prose into gangsta rap. Some of my stuff does not translate well at all. But then some does. It's not serious stuff-- but then, that is the fun of a blog-- not as academic as women writers, but still has potential to make you think.

I screwed up a bunch of links to email me with on various pages trying to avoid spammers. So you can get me through the script at the bottom of this page down there.

After this summer issue, we're going to do a series of guest edited special issues-- starting with one on Women Writers of Color in the Winter 2005 issue. The call for contributions will be posted soon. In the meantime, enjoy the issue as it is now, and go read some stuff. "know what I'm sayin'?"