Supervillain.
Wordsmith, noise lover, shit-disturber, cheese pervert.
I'm the author of DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains (Insomniac Press, 2012) and Thumbscrews (Snare Books, 2007).
Once a scholarly, bookish young woman, I now spend the majority of my time permanently damaging my liver and my hearing at heavy metal shows. I write for a number of publications, both in print and online, including Toronto Standard, NOW Magazine, Torontoist, Hellbound, About Heavy Metal, Angry Metal Guy, and Exclaim!. I currently serve as the Managing Editor of Canada Arts Connect, and my weekly column about feminism and aggressive music, "Girls Don't Like Metal," is hosted on Canada Arts Connect Magazine. I am also the Reviews Editor of This Magazine, and my biweekly column on individual songs from recent Canadian metal albums, "One Track Mind," appears on the This Magazine website.
I like to write about comic books, video games, combat sports, gastroporn, sadomasochism, feminism and difficult music.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Striving for gender equality in publishing is not about silencing men; it’s about bringing women’s voices forward. We should be fostering an environment where people — all people — can safely tell their stories authentically, without fear of dismissal, threat, attack or reprisal. Amber Dawn was given this rare opportunity and she has honoured it, telling us that she “simply continued to write until my wonderful publisher, Arsenal Pulp Press, told me it was time to send the book to the printer.” There is resulting value in this story told, a reminder that we do counts so books like How Poetry Saved My Life can exist and flourish. We should be thanking and celebrating writers like Dawn for doing the real work — facing head-on the vitriol of a sexist literary community, and for powerfully staring all the fear, shame and blame unflinchingly in the face. If we can, we should be telling our own stories, so our experiences, our rapes, don’t end up solely penned by a man on the pages of a prestigious literary journal.
Stacey May Fowles’ brilliant essay on How Poetry Saved My LIfe by Amber Dawn, in the National Post.
The Hawkeye Initiative: Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!
I recently received an email from an anonymous fan sharing how she pulled a Hawkeye Initiative themed prank on her CEO to illustrate a problem with some artwork.
My personal compliments to her and her accomplice on a mission well done; they perfectly took the concept of The Hawkeye Initiative one…
Junot Diaz on Men Who Write About Women
The Atlantic: It sounds like you're saying that literary "talent" doesn't inoculate a writer—especially a male writer—from making gross, false misjudgments about gender. You'd think being a great writer would give you empathy and the ability to understand people who are unlike you—whether we're talking about gender or another category. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
Junot Diaz: I think that unless you are actively, consciously working against the gravitational pull of the culture, you will predictably, thematically, create these sort of fucked-up representations. Without fail. The only way not to do them is to admit to yourself [that] you're fucked up, admit to yourself that you're not good at this shit, and to be conscious in the way that you create these characters. It's so funny what people call inspiration. I have so many young writers who're like, "Well I was inspired. This was my story." And I'm like, "OK. Sir, your inspiration for your stories is like every other male's inspiration for their stories: that the female is only in there to provide sexual service." There comes a time when this mythical inspiration is exposed for doing exactly what it's truthfully doing: to underscore and reinforce cultural structures, or I'd say, cultural asymmetry.
The Man Who Lives Alone
My Intro to Comics final about ghosts and love.
CHASE CHASE CHASE IS AWESOME
So sweet.
Oh shit this is good
(Source: chained-asylum)
Speaking of different body shapes. These are all basically peak human bodies.
How come 99% of them don’t conform to what the entertainment industry tells us is the perfect body?
This is a FABULOUS set of body refs. So glad this came back across my dash so I could reblog it here :D
These images are from a book by Howard Schatz of various Olympic athletes, which was titled “Athlete.” You can buy the book [here]. Also, have some more photos from it:
Never not reblogging this.
Awesome!
Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two
After the longest and darkest of absences, Allie Brosh is back. We missed you!
