Big Fat Blog

[susanstinson]

Well, hey!

They've just picked my book for the July book club at Big Fat Blog. Click the book club links to find it. Lots of interesting conversations about fat going on there, including, if you scroll down a bit on the home page, extensive discussion of the article on fat and class that I linked to here a few days ago.

And someone who's joining the book club has read my other books, and says that Belly Songs, my first -- a diy chapbook of poetry and short fiction -- was the first exposure she ever had to critical writing about fat. She's seen me read, and says quite sweet things about that, too.

Comments

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Well, how lovely and moving! Can you believe it's been ten years? I've got a bunch of new poems that I need to figure out a way to get out into the world, so the image of you responding so strongly to Belly Songs way back when will inspire me.

I'd love to get to Boston for a reading -- used to live there in the mid-eighties and still have a few old friends there, but so far, nothing's set up. And I've been travelling a lot. Did read at Pride&Joy in Northampton in May...

Hope you like the new book. If you're and the book club have questions when you're done discussing (I think it's *much* more fun to talk about a book if the author's not hanging around) -- send them along to me -- su2anliz at hotmail.com, and I'll have a book club day in the lj (or in Big Fat Blog, if that's better) and answer them. (That goes for your book club, too, ericaeous and plasticsturgeon!)

I'm adding you. I've also just learned that you're the only person on lj who lists me as an interest! I don't think I can quite stand to put my own name in my interest list, but I'm sorely tempted to, just to keep you company. And if the icon is Zella, she has an amazing smile.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

That's ericaceous, of course.

[michelle-depesa.livejournal.com]

haha I thought of that; I wondered "wow it must be weird to see your name on someone's interest list". It must be noted that I've had you as an interest since I had the journal :^) I hope I sound too much like a gushing fan ! I'm glad to hear P&J is still there. I was in NoHo last month and just had time to get a meal at LeVeracruzana and dash back onto the pike home. I didn't have time to go to my usual rounds, not even the yarn stores. I used to live in Amherst and was on staff at the Valley Women's Voice - that is where I first saw Fat Girl Dances With Rocks - we had an uncorrected proof to review. A bunch of us were there when you read at Lunaria. it was so long ago.... I hope you publish more poetry - I did not realize Belly Songs was self published - it is very hard to find now. There are all kinds of new options now with the amazing internet. You could make your book available as a .pdf or hard copy and self publish and folks can buy it from you direct with a shopping cart.

Maybe you can read at New Words? they closed the store front (grrr!) but still have a lot of events. Is there still a feminist bookstore in NoHo? last I checked (4 years ago) there was 3rd Wave on I think Green St. (?)

Yes, that is Zella - she doesa have a cute smile which is lucky for her because she gets into an amazing amount of trouble.

[michelle-depesa.livejournal.com]

oops I meant "I hope I DON'T sound too much like a gushing fan"

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Oh, please. I love praise, and love so much that my little known books have really mattered to some of the people who do know about them -- to you, for example. It's a gift -- a beautiful gift that makes me giggle and also a responsibility that I try to take both lightly and seriously in deliciously excruciating balance to be told that. To be honest, my challenge with praise and doing the work necessary to help people find out about the new book is how to harness the energy it gives me in a way that helps me move forward with new work, taking new risks without either getting stuck in the past or starting to play for praise (to write for praise) -- instead of for truth and beauty, fear and delight and going all of the deep places that scare me the most.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

I have a box of Belly Songs from a later printing, but I'm not set up to sell them, so they're in my closet. It's available in a few bookstores around Northampton, like Pride&Joy and Beyond Words, and that's it. Unless the NAAFA book service still has some -- they might.

I remember the group from Valley Women's Voice at the Lunaria reading for Fat Girl Dances With Rocks, and the interview -- with Carmen Collins, I think -- and review in the paper. That book store was practically like my living room, I read there so often, usually with my writers group, so there was always a crowd. That particular reading, my publisher sent flowers and paid for a cake with the book cover on icing on the top, and old friends came all the way from Colorado to hear it, the room was packed, and it was my first novel --I was so excited. You're making me nostalgic, although there are new excitements now. Since those old bookstores (Third Wave, too), radio shows, and papers are all gone -- even the Lesbian Calendar, bless Uncle Pam's patient heart -- I don't know how to reach many of those folks even to let them know that there's a new book out.

Third Wave is long gone, but I might read at Food for Thought in Amherst. Or maybe Broadside. At this point, I'm not sure -- it's better to leave folks wanting more than saturate your home town with readings... Yeah, New Words would be fun, maybe that'll happen.