Ariel Gore

This page is no longer updated

2010-05-06T03:14:00.000-07:00

This is the old page, which was at blogger. I'm not using this anymore, so come to http://arielgore.com to find the latest

Summer Intensive Writing Workshops in Santa Fe

2010-05-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

The Language of Your Life
Morning Intensive meets July 19 - 23, 10 a.m. to Noon

Evening Intensive meets August 9 - 13, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Second St. Studios, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Ignite your creative life, find your voice as a writer, create fresh material... even get started on a book project.

We will meet each day at a small writing studio in Santa Fe to write together and critique each other's work (stories offered for critique may be written earlier or generated during this intensive). This supportive and inspiring group is appropriate for writers interested in working on memoir or fiction--but we'll focus on generating narratives from our own lives.

Class is suitable for writers at all levels--limited to 10, so please register early.

Ariel Gore has taught writing workshops in Portland, Oregon for ten years and lead intensives and writing retreats in Oaxaca, Mexico, Mount Shasta, California, and elsewhere. She is the founding editor of Hip Mama and the author of seven books including Atlas of the Human Heart, The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead, and Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness.

* The writing studio is located at The Second Street Studios -- 1807 Second St., #32. If you are coming from out of town, note that the studio is walking distance (about a half mile) from Santa Fe's International Hostel on Cerrillos Rd. (http://hostelsantafe.com)

$200 ($50 deposit is nonrefundable. Remaining $150 is due at the first meeting.)

Sign up for the July morning intensive:
Sign up for the August evening intensive:

The Counselor & Di Prima

2010-04-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

New Blog at Psychology Today

Mountain Highways

2010-04-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

We finally left our little house in Portland later-than-we-planned on Monday morning, hitched our little blue trailer to the back of the car and headed out. ‘Course we lost the trailer on Division. Max had just stopped crying about moving away from everything and everyone when there was a terrible sound behind us and he cried, “What’s happening to the car?”

So there we were, pulled over on the side of the road not a mile from the home we left, trying to flag down men in trucks. Finally we dragged the whole get-up back to U-haul and Dylan hitched it up, not because he’s the U-haul expert so much as “Woah, my dad used to have an old trailer like this.”

The 2,000-mile drive suddenly seemed pretty sketchy. “We could leave the trailer at Shannon’s,” I offered. But all our stuff was in the trailer and the guys at Sunset RV in Forest Grove had fixed all the lights and replaced the stove and gotten her road-ready, and Cody and Jennifer at the hardware store on Division had helped us pick out all the right paints, and Angie had helped us paint it, and Vincent the tailor on Milwaukie had made the sweet red slip covers. It wasn’t just a trailer—it was our project and it was our home now—we would take it to California and beyond!

Maria started out driving slow, but pretty soon we were on the 5 and passing trucks and Max was laughing again and we gowled over the passes and rolled out of Oregon and into the Shasta range. Snowy night camped out at the edge of a little town. I love the towns around Mount Shasta—full of old hippies and mountain people and folks dressed all in white studying advanced trigonometry while they wait for Jesus and the UFOs. California.

Another drive through the snow on Tuesday and we arrived in beautiful Plumas County and the sun broke through the clouds like some Hollywood ending. But we hoped it was more like a beginning. Invincible Spring.

I wasn’t even sure if the cabin we were staying in here was going to have plumbing, so we were happily surprised--not only an indoor toilet, but a hot shower, electricity—even snacks and beer. The Feather River College Writing Club and the Plumas Arts Council and the Quincy Writers Group know how to treat a visiting writer, all right.

The dogs ran around in country-heaven and Max fell in love with his new local-kid friends, Diego and Paloma. Hot springs soak down by the river and great writers at the workshops telling working-class stories about cleaning motel rooms and moving shingles, fiberglass shards in their arms.

We eat Portobello Mushroom burgers at Pangaea and figure, “well, if it doesn’t work out in Santa Fe, let’s move to Plumas County.”

But we’re still hoping for Santa Fe today and heading out with maps from the thrift store. Thinking about Nevada and whether to go through Utah or Arizona and getting worried now about what we’ll find in New Mexico. My mom’s torn apart the house we’re moving into, so it seems like we’ll be living in the trailer for a while yet. Good thing we didn’t leave it at Shannon’s, I guess.

Mountain highways.

Hip Mama

2010-03-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Hip Mama is up for an Utne Reader Alternative Press Award for... Best Writing!

New online writing class starts in May...

2010-03-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

CLASS FULL - WAIT LIST ONLY!

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

Eight-week class runs May 14th – July 8th
ONLINE CLASS LIT STAR TRAINING
Taught by Ariel Gore

This class is the creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve our craft with practice and critique. Appropriate for writers working on longer projects as well as those who want to write to assignments and produce short essays and stories. The pace is quick and energizing--you won't even have time to worry about creative blocks.

Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone conference call. Class size is limited, so please sign up early. $275

Email arielgore at earthlink dot net with questions.

$90 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

Portland Queer is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award!

2010-03-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

The finalists are...

LGBT Anthologies

* Gay American Autobiography: Writings from Whitman to Sedaris, edited by David Bergman (University of Wisconsin Press)
* Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight Over Sexual Rights, edited by Gilbert Herdt (NYU Press)
* My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, edited by Michael Montlack (University of Wisconsin Press)
* Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City, edited by Ariel Gore (Lit Star Press)
* Smash the Church, Smash the State! The Early Years of Gay Liberation, edited by Tommi Avicolli Mecca (City Lights)

More categories here...

A Quick Brush of Wings

2010-03-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

Sonoma County, 1991

If I wanted to be a writer, I realized, I would have to go where the writers were.

I had to find these people.

These writers.

I had to seek them out and be in their presence and inhale the air they exhaled.

I had to learn from them.

And here was my chance. I saw the ad in the local alternative weekly: An evening with Anne Lamott and Amy Tan. These were maybe the two most powerful thirty-something or forty-something women in the San Francisco literary scene. Anne Lamott and Amy Tan. They would be my foremothers, my teachers. If only I could share this evening with them. Yes.

I had to be there, obviously.

Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.

$150 per person.

I hardly ever drove into the city.

It meant getting Lance to watch the baby. He’d come to California now, too. He lived four blocks from us, was suing me for custody.

It meant the gas and the bridge toll.

It meant tapping the dashboard three times and praying that the Dodge would make it.

This time, it also meant $150.

$150. Just over a quarter of my monthly income.

But what was $150, really? What was a quarter tank of gas and a quarter of my monthly income and a $3 bridge toll when it would make me a writer?

I would meet these women and they would see me—they would see the writer in me and they would lean into me and they would whisper the secrets that writers whisper.

The ad—even seeing that ad—had been destiny. Clearly. I hardly ever read that weekly paper.

I had $21 in the cookie jar for my gas and electricity bill. I only needed another $129 for the ticket. The gas and electric company could wait. If we had to live in the dark for a week or three weeks—what did it matter? This evening was the thing that mattered. An evening with Anne Lamott and Amy Tan.

I showed the ad to Mary, the old woman who’d recently moved into my neighborhood in Petaluma. I bounced Maia on my knee as I opened the newspaper on Mary’s formica kitchen table. I pointed. “Anne Lamott and Amy Tan,” I hummed. I’d been helping Mary around her little government apartment, putting away groceries for her, pulling weeds in her tiny front garden. We’d shared Christmas dinner. I’d invited her over after the man from the food bank called to tell me I was eligible for a free turkey. When I went to pick it up, it turned out to be two chickens—they’d run out of turkeys. But I had some vegetables in the fridge, so I made chicken soup for Christmas dinner and I didn’t skim off the fat. Chicken soup for me and Mary and the baby. We sat in the little dining alcove in my apartment, and she told me this and that about her life. She was Athabaskan Indian, she said. Born up in Alaska but her mother died of tuberculosis and she was adopted out to a white family down in Seattle.

Mary. She had short, black hair and laughing eyes. She looked at the ad for the evening with the writers and said, “sounds like a lot of money.”

But what did Mary know?

She was poor, she was old.

I knew what I had to do.

It was a clear-sky day in Petaluma.

I got Lance to watch the baby.

I used my bill money for the gas and the bridge.

Tom Waits sang “Hang on St. Christopher” on my car radio.

I used the rent money for the ticket.

Amy Tan read something unpublished and showed slides of her grandparents.

Anne Lamott said she’d been a black-belt codependent and had just broken up with a man who wasn’t fit to drink her bath water.

Afterwards, the writers drank punch around a table and people approached them and told them they loved their work and told them they’d changed their lives and told them they liked the talks they’d just given.

I stood against a wall and watched.

I stood against a wall and watched the light change as the sun set over the bay.

I stood against a wall and bit my fingernails.

I cried at Mary’s kitchen table the next morning, cried at what an idiot I’d been. The rain poured outside, flooding the streets and walkways. I would never be a writer, it was true. That counselor in her drab brown office back at the junior college had been right. What was I thinking? I had to come down to earth. This wet earth. I had to figure out how to make a living. I had to figure out how to live. I had a child to take care of.

Mary just smiled at me, shook her head the way she did. “Ariel,” she said. “You are with the writers. Right now and right here you’re with the writers. And here we’re doing the things that writers do. We’re washing the dishes and we’re putting away the groceries. We’re helping each other. We’re paying attention, aren’t we?”

I thought she was sweet, old Athabaskan Mary, but obviously she was kind of doddery. Helping Mary around her apartment was all good and fine, but it was hardly where the writers were. And I wanted to be a writer. My mind wandered. I was back at Fort Mason. Back with the writers and thinking of all the things I might have said to them if I wasn’t so afraid. If they had looked at me.

“I have something for you,” Mary said, interrupting my writer-thought. She stood up, left me there to breathe in my self-pity.

A few minutes later she came back with a slim volume. A Quick Brush of Wings by Mary TallMountain. “My new book,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to give you a copy.”

I looked at the title and I looked at the author’s name for a long time before I let it sink in.

Mary.

TallMountain.

And with that she leaned into me and she whispered the secrets that writers whisper. And I breathed her in and I became one.

Mary

Are Zines Dead?

2010-03-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

Pat asks:

Warmest greetings, Ariel.

I'm proud to say you've been discovered twice in my household: my wife read Hip Mama when she was preggers with our own hip baby, Wee Gwennie...and I read How to be a Famous Writer after publication of my first book, Mind.Net.

And I must say, that book's spoken to me. I'm re-reading it now, for the third time, and almost finished (again).

Somehow, though, I didn't put any of its best suggestions to practice when (timidly) promoting my first book. I did a little guerilla marketing, with some posters and surreptious poster-hanging on the local college campus...and one signing at the local Borders...and got one decent review in the local paper (7 freakin months after sending them a copy!).

Next time it will be different. My second book, Refrigerator Magnets, is coming out soon, maybe as early as this month, and this time there will be no timid marketing. This is the book I've wanted to write for...well, ever, really. So I'd be a criminal unto myself if I didn't do all I can to get it in front of all eyes possible.

Which leads me to my question. I love the idea of doing a zine. I want to do a zine. I want to do a print zine because - well, I'm not sure exactly why but I feel it strongly. Print is zine and zine is print.

When I told my wife my plan (which is still hazy at best, btw, and mostly lacking a theme)...she looked at me with pure wonder as to how she could have married such a moron. "You know print is dead, right?" she asked.

My wife is a brilliant artist and knows a lot about nearly everything. I respect her opinion utmost. But I disagree wholeheartedly here.

Because I'm not trying to get rich off it, and not expecting to print thousands, or even many hundreds, of copies. I'm just seeing a hip-looking arts-and-literature zine, with a hip-sounding title of Untitled or maybe Not Yet Titled, sitting by the cash registers in hip record stores and tattoo shops. Maybe it's free, maybe it's a buck. Who knows.

All I know is I love that idea, hazy as it is, so much that I'd chase after it even if I didn't have a book to promote.

So I ask you, arbiter, and adviser, is print dead? Is my only hope the web?

I hope not. Nothing against the web, I wallow in the web. This writer loves print, is all.

I have huge appreciation for any time you've been able to take to read and think about my dilemma. If you've time to respond, I swear I'll do repeated backflips.

hip solidarity,

Pat Worden

Ariel Answers:

That's a good question. Can I put it up on my blog and see if anyone comments? I AM SERIOUS.

You know, I love print. And folks have been saying print-is-dead for decades and decades (with the advent of radio, movies, TV, then internet...) But you don't sit on the toilet with an ezine. You don't go to bed with Kindle (or at least it's totally unsexy if you do). A print zine has tactile validity... you can take it to the park.

And when there is some natural disaster and the electricity is off for more than a few hours, the only archives will be paper. Everything that happened online will be irretrievable by the archeologists of the future. Archival quality, limited press run, print stories rule the world.

I am planning a new zine myself!

So I am of the mind that print is not dead.

But what do I know?

Maybe I'm just a fogey.

* * *

What do you think?

2010-03-04T19:13:00.001-08:00

Calliope's Holistic Happiness Plan

2010-03-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Kari asks

Hi Ariel,

Just gobbled up your book in one day and then re-read it taking notes a few days later. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’ve read your other books and was thrilled to see that you wrote a book on “happiness” one of my favorite topics!

One thing I’m curious about, you mention one of your experts, Calliope and her “holistic action plan” and six month evaluations. Then at the end of the paragraph (pg. 152) it then mentions her “ten week plan” but says no more. I’m curious what that plan was all about? I think I will try the 6 month evaluation technique, but like the idea of more frequency, so I’m curious.

Thanks!
Kari

Calliope answers

When I was working on how to get myself out of my the slump I was heading towards, I put together my finances and tried to figure out which modalities would best help me. I decided that I had to create a 10-week holistic action plan. I chose 10 weeks because that’s how many I had left before the end of the year.

I chose community acupuncture first . These clinics are popping up all over America. Their premise is to make health care accessible and affordable. Because it works with the whole body, it was perfect for me--and all of us, really! So, I went to acupuncture once, and sometimes twice, per week.

At the same time I was developing my wellness plan, I met a budding massage therapist and told him what I was designing. We made a deal that for every 3rd person who booked a massage with him, he would give me a free one. So, I set up five on a pre-pay, and then I was able to get additional massages for free because once I told people the deal I was working toward, and how fabulous my massages were, they were quick to make appointments.

I had eight sessions with a counselor who specializes in holographic repatterning. Each week, I went in with a plan to talk about something I wanted to release and let go. She used my verbal cues and muscle testing to discover what I was really holding on to and we worked together using various modalities to try to move the energy through my body.

I was a yoga teacher at the time, so it was fairly easy to incorporate yoga into my wellness plan. In addition to teaching my three to five classes per week, I made myself stretch for one class on my own, and I completed a 40-day meditation.

I felt like this really helped me move some stagnant energy through and I was able to approach many of the recordings and patterns that were inside me with a different point of view once the new year began.

It was like I had a new pair of shoes to walk down my new path.

xoxox

Words from a bag

2010-03-04T16:37:00.000-08:00

I asked the writers in Newport to pick a word from my handy word bag and write for 4 minutes... Simple enough & no time for writers block.

CHEESE

I love cheese- havarti, blue, Dubliner Irish cheddar, cream cheese. Everything is better with cream cheese.. Stilton with lemon, parmesan baked with pecans, my latest favorite treat….But… Weight Watchers ruins my relationship with cheese. Laughing Cow makes me cry. String cheese is a drawn out exercise as I peel skinny shreds of the little stick of cheese- shredded lengths that I can make last the whole car ride home.

When I open the fridge, I give a side glance to the drawer that holds my precious cheese. Through clear plastic, I see a log of goat cheese… green-grey mold slowly creeping along the edge where months ago I ate my cheese with abandon.

Now I slowly open the drawer, eyeing the selection, scanning slowly, sadly, and then with self-righteous conviction, peel open my 1 point wedge of Laughing Cow imposter cheese.

—Sandy Post

ZOO

Kate and I go to the zoo on rainy days, when her little boy is in daycare. The animals are bored or sleepy, the ocelot yawns and the bear is sleeping and the elephants are standing still. We can just wander and talk, or not, about whatever or the animals. The lorikeets are the only ones that are glad to see us. We go into the netted aviary, buy tiny cups of sugar water for a quarter, and they flutter around, teasing us and each other. One will land on my wrist and dip, another will chase it away and land there itself, one lands on Kate’s hand, drinks.

Kate tells me her sister is a bitch, cries, I am so happy to have as lorikeet on my wrist drinking sugar water from a tiny cup that it is hard to listen, and another lorikeet lands on my shoulder, I feel it clicking its beak, waiting. I try to be patient and tell Kate yes I think her sister is a bitch, plus she has no lorikeet, and here’s another quarter.

When we leave the aviary I drop my empty paper cup in the trash can and it is full of a hundred empty paper cups.

—Joanna Rose

TEMPRATURE

They say you engage much more of your brain when the pen is in your hot little hand but my fingers are flying across the keyboard creating heat with an intelligence of their own. Perhaps they have not calculated the wisdom of fingers - fingers which have pushed crayons stiffly across Kindergarten pictures and pens which have formed their first letters on school tablets. Fingers gripped the handles of bicycles with exciting fear as your Dad said, “It’s okay, I’m going to let go now.” Fingers cautiously curled around your first boyfriend and then extended with confidence to accept the slippery cold ring from your last as you said, “I do.” Fingers stuffed wedding cake in his mouth and would cook each last supper as the years marched on. Fingers would smooth the buttery vernix into the new wrinkles of your first baby’s cheeks as your eyes squinted at each other and sealed the earthly connection of your souls who already knew much more. Fingers knowingly guided the mouths of each new baby to your nipples which had waited in the wings all those years filling other roles until they could fulfill their destiny. Fingers caressed the silky hair and gripped the sweaty miniatures of themselves as you escorted your toddlers into childhood. Fingers are wise beyond their years. And all I have left of my son are contained in their memory. So don’t tell me about my brain.

—Kelly Kittel

Since I hardly ever get to NYC, beautiful Gabrielle sent her performance to my inbox...

2010-03-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

Happiness is a Cheerful Housewife with a Housekeeper and a Sitter...

2010-03-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

This story is insane!

This is what I was trying to write about in Bluebird... but there is often this push-pull weirdness when you are trying to write about an issue that should have been settled a hundred years ago. But this bizarre traditionalist perfectionism is still being shoved down our throat. This top-selling book for American women "shows," according to its author, "that you don't have to do something radical."

It's funny, because my local snarky newspaper sort of panned Bluebird, saying, "Can a woman be smart, empowered, and happy?"..If you've got half a brain, you've already figured it out..."

But this is what I get when I open the The New York Times...

It's the happiness project from hell:

Don't worry your pretty little head about doing anything radical.

Clean your closets.

Hire a personal trainer.

Put artificial sweetener on your salad instead of that bad fattening oil.

Speak with good cheer.

It's really so exactly like the Victorian good-wife manuals I read up on... I do not know what to say.

I mean, am I the only one who thinks this story is frightening? Or is it just like "Yeah. yeah, Ariel, go on a diet and maybe you'll understand."?

Miriam Sagan reviews

2010-02-18T18:45:00.000-08:00

The beautiful Miriam Sagan likes to read about happiness...

Salon interview

2010-02-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

Sounds like me on a triple espresso...

Read it here...

Happiness is a beautiful woman, a ukelele, red curtains, pendant lamps, and absinthe...

2010-02-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

Linda Rand reflects on being a part of the research for Bluebird:

It has definitely changed me. When I was participating in Ariel's happiness project, I realized the emotion happiness co-existed with other emotions. It wasn't some rarefied state to attain... that I could be sad or depressed but find that little joy within myself, at being alive, or having a home, or beautiful kids...

Since then I've been using it as a sort of barometer of where I'm at...or an internal compass of sorts:) when I'm lost I follow the thread of joy and end up back on my path. today my life is less frustrated and compromised. I'm an artist who makes marionettes and mixed media and have sold pieces, including commissions for about a year. I had more bartender jobs than I could keep and have whittled it down to two places. One is a retro supper club and lounge where I am surrounded by amazingly talented people. When I first walked into the place there was a '30s hot jazz act (Midnight Serenaders), a beautiful woman in garters and a ukelele, red curtains, pendant lamps, absinthe, and I thought, "this place is for me," and I ended up working there within the month. To this day, when I'm confused intellectually (the mind is a great tool but a terrible master some wise soul said) I find that feeling... is it happiness or something else? Is it restriction, dread... numbness? then I know whether it's right or wrong.... at least I have a clue.

I believe this was the first time anyone asked me how I achieved happiness...

2010-02-05T14:35:00.000-08:00

Margaret, another woman on the Bluebird counsel of experts, says:

Given the dearth of inquiry toward women and their personal experience with happiness, I found Ariel's research revolutionary. I am a person who is resilient in spite of hardship and I make happiness a key factor in decision making. But I believe this was the first time in my life that anyone--friend, family, or professional--asked me how I achieved happiness. The other women in the group were diverse in personal experience, so I heard a rich variety of opinions not only on ways to attain happiness, but also the importance such a goal may or may not deserve.

A slight shift in consciousness

2010-02-03T15:53:00.001-08:00

For Bluebird, I asked women to keep happiness journals--just simple notes about the best moments in each day. We all then met and talked about our experience, and about happiness.

Now, many months later, I asked some of the women who participated in the research to reflect on the experience.

Roslyn Farrington says this:

I really loved the process. I love that we all independently got the same assignment and then when we came together it was lovely to see how everyone took on the task and interpreted the homework. For me, it helped me to see more clearly how I had been unconciously thinking of and practicing happiness as somethig that comes from outside of me rather than cultivating a "spirit of happiness" that was based on my internal relationship with myself. I intellectually knew that happiness came from within, but the daily tracking of feelings of happiness helped me to know that I wasn't always living what I knew. So the shift for me was a slight shift in consciousness and attention.

Upcoming Portland & San Francisco Readings

2010-02-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

I'll be talking about / reading from Bluebird in Portland and San Francisco soon...

Wednesday, February 3rd - 7:30 pm

POWELL'S CITY OF BOOKS

1005 W. Burnside, Portland

Tuesday, February 23rd - 7 pm

BROADWAY BOOKS

1714 NE Broadway, Portland

Wednesday, March 24 - 7 pm

MODERN TIMES

888 Valencia, San Francisco

2010-02-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

"What actually makes this book sing though is Ariel charming and witty writing style. She tells stories of her family and stories of her friends. Women she knows well and barely knows at all, come forward to say what works for them, what makes them happy. No two stories are alike but all have a familiar ring. Happiness is found in kissing the head of a baby and smelling in his scent, a hike in a favorite place, or an evening spent alone in a bath. Guess what happiness industry? Surprise, surprise, happiness actually doesn’t cost you anything — perhaps though, it might be worth the cost of this book."

--from Wise Bread

I wanted to like The Happiness Project

2010-02-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

Has anyone read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin?

Is it just me, or is this book totally barf-worthy?

She talks about "eating healthy" with her friend on the "no fake food" resolution & then they put artificial sweetener on their SALAD (instead of dressing... fewer calories! Yippee!)

This is the nonsense that gives Americans in general & positive psychology in particular a bad name.

GIVE ME OLIVE OIL!

Did we really claw our way to the top of the food chain to eat artificial sweetener on our salad?

I wanted to like The Happiness Project. Really I did.

The premise is right up my alley: A woman--a wife and a mother no less--sets out to make herself happier. And she does so without apology. Radical. Gretchen's character, with all her chart-making anxiety, is endearing. She's well-read and well-educated. Maybe that's why it's all the more maddening to watch her poison her salad and make resolutions like "don't eat hours' d'vours" and "make three new friends" and "unclutter your closets."

Am I really being invited to diet and make fake friends and do housework for happiness?

My daughter doesn't usually go in for feminist conspiracy theories, but she took one look at the book and said, quite seriously, "Maybe she was hired by the government. Just like Taylor Swift. Reverting back to the 50s-housewife kitchen-sink diaries so we won't pay attention to the war and the economy."

I appreciated my daughter's immediate clarity. Here I'd sat with the book for hours, allowing it to make me feel like a loser. I don't consider myself poor, but suddenly I was thinking, Wow, if I can't afford a personal trainer, a professional photographer for the kids, and an organic salad (with saccharine) at a New York deli, how will I ever be happy??

Positive psychologist Martin Seligman has said, "when nations are wealthy and not in civil turmoil and not at war, they start asking what makes like worth living, and that's what positive psychology is about."

But I reject the idea that positive psychology can only be a psychology of privilege.

Rich people have every right to their feelings, sure, but materialism isn't what ultimately makes people happy--materialism is what's killing the planet.

In the introduction to The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin makes a point to underline how "fortunate" she is--with her tall, dark, handsome, and well-employed husband and their healthy children. But she also states, as so many writers on happiness do, that she can't really define happiness. "I'll know it when I see it," they say.

Happiness is hard to define--it's a vast human emotion--but if we're going to consider something deeply--if we're going to write a whole book about it--I think we can venture at least a working definition.

Canadian positive psychologist Paul T.P. Wong defines happiness as “the capacity to rejoice in the midst of suffering.” I like that definition. Happiness isn’t the absence of suffering. Happiness doesn’t have to be about privilege or denial.

“Your definition of happiness will depend upon who you are--” Masura Emoto writes in The Hidden Messages in Water, “but do you have a sense of peace in your heart, a feeling of security about your future, and a feeling of anticipation when you wake up in the morning? If we can call this happiness, then would you say that at this moment you are happy?”

Clearly happiness is hard to muster when we have real survival anxiety, but if happiness requires a personal trainer and an "over buying" problem as we read about in The Happiness Project--Well, I don't know.

But next time I get $10, I'm spending it on olive oil--& I'm sharing it with someone who'll appreciate a little fat.

the point of poetry?

2010-02-02T09:37:00.000-08:00

Why bother with art? In the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, and when millions have no food and water, Scott Christian wonders on Salon.com: Who gives a shit about Picasso? What's the point of poetry?

My mother has lung cancer even though she never smoked. A visual artist, she wonders if she's ill from years of inhaling poisonous paint fumes and fixants.

My daughter clicks to private design school websites. They cost $21,000 a year, $28,000 a year, $42,000 a year.

Is art a privilege?

Is it a necessity, like food and water?

Is it poison?

I wrote a book on happiness, but now that it's out there's a recession on and the journalists call for their interviews and complain: Americans can't afford happiness anymore.

But I was poor for long enough to know that happiness is one of the free things--like love, like creativity.

In the rubble, a woman is singing.

Erg to Amazon. Just when I was getting happy.

2010-01-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

So, I finally get a serious nod in The New York Times Book Review and Amazon & my publisher are in some hot dispute!

***

Imagine my puzzlement when someone emailed me Friday evening complaining that my book wasn't available on Amazon.com.

I checked it out myself: Indeed, it was listed, but no buy button. You could purchase it from a third party, but you couldn't even pre-oder it from Amazon. It looked like it was out of print.

I emailed my editor and publicist and they responded that they were totally miffed--that they would try to get to the bottom of it. I guess no one told them, just as no one told me, that all books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, had vanished from Amazon.com. Macmillan's imprints include Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martins Press and Henry Holt.

The disappearance, it turns out, is the result of a disagreement between Amazon and book publishers that has been brewing for the last year. Macmillan, like other publishers, asked Amazon to raise the price of electronic books from $9.99 to around $15. Amazon said no. Macmillan pushed the point, and Amazon responded by removing Macmillan books--and not just the ebooks.

According to Publishers Marketplace, all of Macmillan's books--including bestsellers, top releases, and Kindle editions--were removed from Amazon's site. Macmillan Kindle titles all lead to pages that read, "We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site." It's the first shot across the purchasing bow in big publishers' efforts to reset ebook pricing above the loss-leader $9.99 price point and retake control over that pricing by moving from the wholesale selling model to an agency selling model.

Kindle customers further reported on Amazon forums that any Macmillan books that were on their "wish lists" disappeared from those lists with no explanation, as apparently did Macmillan sample chapters that had been downloaded previously.

Macmillan has answered only with a paid announcement in Publishers Marketplace addressed to its authors: "You are a vast and wonderful crew. It is impossible to reach you all in the very limited timeframe we are working under, so I have sent this message in unorthodox form. I hope it reaches you all, and quickly. Monday morning I will fully brief all of our editors, and they will be able to answer your questions. I hope to speak to many of you over the coming days."

It's a wild development in book publishing and book selling, and of course disappointing and deflating for me as an author to have my book caught up in it...

***

Moral: Shop your local independent.

Other moral: The publishing industry sucks.

Is writing worth anything? In the age of digital media, do words and ideas have value--or is paper the only thing that has value in the marketplace?

Does Amazon have the power to set all the rules of publishing and book selling? Should they? Is their unannounced action on a Friday evening fair play?

Where do you buy your books?

(Lots of folks have been writing saying they want to boycott Amazon but can't beat their prices. Here is a place to get books cheap: Strand Books

Feminist Review on Bluebird

2010-01-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

This short but meaningful book is a smart combination of self-help, memoir, and academic study. Gore does not surmise a remedy for the blues, she does not use her life as an anecdote to overcome defeat or as a guiding light toward beatitude, nor does she use statistics and theory to expose her education. Instead, Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness is a collection of wise womanhood, the crannies of optimism that are too often ignored.

With eloquent emotional pacing, Gore forms a convincing argument that happiness, particularly among women, has been historically understudied and oversimplified in her academic field. She asks, “How is it that psychology— once envisioned as a great healing art—has gotten to this place where our neuroses are considered so much more valid than our resiliences?” Gore bravely takes on the secret of joy by combining her personal memoirs with history, science, and first person accounts of real women experiencing real happiness. Her words have the contagious effect of positivism without the obnoxious, evangelistic ethos found so often in the self-help aisle.

the generosity of happiness

2010-01-09T12:49:00.001-08:00

Some folks worry that happiness is selfish. My grandmother taught me otherwise. Read more...

BLUEBIRD—New book drops January 19

2010-01-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

You can order Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness right now...

Praise for Bluebird

Ariel Gore is one of the best feminist writers of our times— perhaps the most eloquent and sensitive of all. In her latest book, she expertly filets the plastic bluebird of happiness to reveal its faintly beating heart.

—Susie Bright

Appealingly personal and genuinely interesting.

—The New York Times Book Review

Can a woman be smart, empowered and happy? The answer is yes — but Gore must go on a fascinating journey into the history of women, science and psychology to find out.

—New York Post

Thoughtful, funny, and inspiring, Gore is a down-to-earth guide to the elusive human quest for happiness.

—Booklist

Bluebird is the eclectic, funny, and honest chronicle of this empowering feminist quest for bliss.

—Bust Magazine

Evidence that no one gets bullied into fake cheerfulness more than American women.

—Elle

Bold and whip-smart, Bluebird offers a striking, often defiant take on how modern women find joy.

—BookPage

Bluebird: Women And The New Psychology of Happiness is an excellent book for any woman, as well as for men who care about women and society. It should definitely be a must-read for those psychologists who continue to ignore the possibility of a healthy, free reality for women.

—Lone Star Ma

Female readers of positive psychology books will like this one, and the many fans of Noelle Oxenhandler's The Wishing Year and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love will enjoy Gore's personal narrative.

—Library Journal

Everybody, it seems, wants to know why women aren't happy. But Bluebird suggests that maybe that's the wrong question. In reframing the age-old, exasperated query of what women really want—from themselves, their partners, their jobs, and their families—Gore's exploration of happiness offers a probing, inspiring, and deeply humane alternative to the powerful positive-thinking industry. Bluebird is radical in the truest sense—and as a recovering pessimist, I'll be keeping it handy.

—Andi Ziesler, editorial director of Bitch Magazine

It's time to register for the Spring writing class - CLASS FULL

2010-01-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

Eight-week class runs February 20th – April 20th
ONLINE CLASS LIT STAR TRAINING
Taught by Ariel Gore

This class is the creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve our craft with practice and critique. Appropriate for writers working on longer projects as well as those who want to write to assignments and produce short essays and stories. The pace is quick and energizing--you won't even have time to worry about creative blocks.

Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone conference call. Class size is limited, so please sign up early. $275

Email arielgore at earthlink dot net with questions.

$90 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

Confessions of a Lousy Yogi

2009-12-14T13:54:00.000-08:00

When I stared going to yoga classes, I figured my learning curve would be like it is with most things: I'd start out as the bumbling beginner in the back row and then, perhaps slowly, I'd get the hang of it.

I wasn't deluded. I knew I'd never be as agile as the teenager in the front row or as strong as the ex-Marine in the corner. But with time and practice, I figured I'd get competent. Pretty soon, I'd be one of the folks that newbies eye when they lose track of the pose flow. Maybe I'd even learn to do a headstand.

And so with these humble dreams, I joined the ranks of all the unemployed adults in my town, donned comfortable stretchy clothes, and bought my first punch card.

But, alas, after eight months of practicing three to six times a week, I have improved. . . not at all. I am perpetually the apple-shaped lady in the back row who falters in tree pose, who tips over in eagle pose, who cannot, for the life of me, when bent forward in downward dog, ever seem to be able to step or hop my feet between my hands. Or anywhere near my hands.

Even corpse pose eludes me. I broke my tailbone when I was pregnant with the little one, so lying flat on my back smarts.

My partner says I'm getting stronger. She assures me that, yes, there is some tactile benefit to all these "warrior twos" and sun salutations, but I think my well-defined biceps might just as easily be explained by the fact that the baby keeps getting heavier.

Yoga teachers are fond of reminding their students that yoga is not a competitive sport. "No judgment," they say. "Be where you are."

And I'm not really here to judge myself. Or be any place else. But it does seem curious that a girl can suck at something and continue to suck at it no matter how much of it she does.

No matter, I remind myself. As I learned from punk philosophy, it's OK to do things you're not good at. The journey is the destination, man.

It's kind of a relief, actually. I never have to worry that I'm going to be put on the spot and asked to "demonstrate" for the class. In fact, on several occasions I have been asked to move my mat so that some beginner will have a view of someone else--anyone else.

My first yoga teacher apparently didn't share my punk philosophy. He was encouraging enough at first, but pretty soon he was fed up. "Ariel!" he'd snap. "You're not paying attention!"

I was paying attention. But I've always had a really hard time remembering my right from my left-so if you say, "Ariel, lift your right leg," there's that moment's delay as I quickly check the tattoo I know is on my right forearm and then make the calculation that means I have to lift the opposite leg.

When the rest of the class was in sync, he'd yell, "Ariel, you're spacing out! The rest of my class is a flock of birds!"

What did that make me? The turd?

So I gathered up my comfy stretch pants and my yoga mat and I found a new studio where the teachers are so busy chanting OM that they either don't notice that I never seem to get better or they're at peace with the universe and therefore don't care.

It would be fun if practice made perfect.

Or even proficient.

But I guess sometimes practice just makes practice.

Namaste.

Papergirl flow

2009-11-25T07:41:00.000-08:00

I fold newspapers in the still dark morning. I fold them in three and snap a rubber band around the middle.

I am the first in our neighborhood to know that Mount St. Helens has erupted, that Ronald Reagan has won the presidency by a landslide, that John Lennon has been murdered.

My fingers black with ink, I pack the newspapers into the metal basket of my sparkly blue three-speed bicycle. I pedal fast. I spread the news...

Think Feminism Made Women Unhappy? Try Television

2009-11-06T13:17:00.001-08:00

"Commercialism is a vacuum," my mother warned me. "It will suck you in."

I was seven or eight years old and my mother was running a bath for me. I imagined being sucked down the drain into a wet underworld of nefarious Disney characters.

I was getting the lecture because I'd been caught watching television beyond my allotted hour and, even more horrifying to my mother, I'd been making my Christmas list during the commercials.

I figured I was multi-tasking.

My mother figured otherwise. "How do you think you can figure out what you want while the commercials are bombarding you with images of what they want you to want?" my mother asked me. To her eyes, I was a sitting duck.

Later that night, she picked up our television and lugged it out the garage, never to be seen again.

"Thanks a lot," my sister snarked...

Read more on my blog at Psychology Today

What would balloon boy do?

2009-10-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, balloon boy, I've been thinking about you. I've been imagining you in my memoir workshop 20 years from now, 30 years from now.

In the derby of fucked-up childhoods, you just might win.

Oh, balloon boy. I grew up among Californians who waited for aliens. Sometimes I thought they were so crazy, so blood-thirsty. But the reality-TV vampires wait for you with much more anger, much more zeal.

Balloon boy, I hope you didn't get in too much trouble for blurting the family secret to Wolf Blitzer. You were only six. And, you know what? They had it coming.

Someone had to stop the madness, stop the bullshit. You were only six, balloon boy, but you did it. You are my hero.

Speak truth to power, as the Quakers say. Speak it on CNN, kid.

You are my hero, balloon boy.

Whenever I think, Wow, it would be easier to lie right now, I will think of you.

What would balloon boy do?

Balloon boy would tell the truth.

I just heard a beautiful and fucked-up song about you, balloon boy. You might like it.

You can listen to it HERE.

But of course it isn't really a song about you. It's a song about the rest of us. It's a song about all the CNN-watchers and the CNN-reporters and the people who cannot deal with the pain of their own lives looking, watching, hoping for the worst.

But you are the best, balloon boy.

You are the very best.

Cancer doesn't really have a bright side

2009-10-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

Looking for that space between false cheeriness and existential depression

The idea for the happiness journal came from a little book called A Life of One's Own written by the British psychoanalyst Marion Milner and published under the pseudonym Joanna Field in the 1930s. Milner's idea was that if she recorded the best moments in her daily life, she might begin to trace patterns from those moments and discover the conditions for lasting happiness.

My own habit had always been to write about the things that ticked me off in a given day. If I kept a journal at all, I kept it to vent.

I had learned to analyze the darkness beautifully. Why not try the opposite?

It's time to register for the Winter writing class - CLASS FULL

2009-10-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

Eight-week class starts December 4th

ONLINE CLASS LIT STAR TRAINING

Taught by Ariel Gore

(December 4th - February 5th... so it's actually nine weeks, but we'll take the week of December 22nd - 28th off for a little winter break)

This class is the creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve our craft with practice and critique. Appropriate for writers working on longer projects as well as those who want to write to assignments and produce short essays and stories. The pace is quick and energizing--you won't even have time to worry about creative blocks.

Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone conference call. Class size is limited, so please sign up early. $275

$85 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

gnash your terrible teeth

2009-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Maurice Sendak is cracking me up.

from Amy Graff at sfgate:
Maurice Sendak tells parents to go to hell

This Friday, October 16, the movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are opens in theaters.

The poignant 10-sentence book about an angry boy who is sent to bed without supper and sails to a magical land overrun by wild creatures has been made into a full-length feature film with a script by director Spike Jonze (recently interviewed by the Chronicle) and local boy Dave Eggers.

Ever since the media got word of the film, reporters have hounded Sendak, Eggers, and Jonze. One of the main questions reporters are asking is, Will this film based on one of the best children's books of all-time be appropriate for children?

The creative minds behind this film have seemed to dance around this question in most interviews, but Sendak freely spoke his mind for a Newsweek story, appearing in the October 19 magazine. Sendak, Jonze, and Eggers were all interviewed for the story.

Reporter: "What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?"

Sendak: "I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate."

Reporter: "Because kids can handle it?"

Sendak: "If they can't handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it's not a question that can be answered."

Jonze: "Dave, you want to field that one?"

Eggers: "The part about kids wetting their pants? Should kids wear diapers when they go to the movies? I think adults should wear diapers going to it, too. I think everyone should be prepared for any eventuality."

Sendak: "I think you're right. This concentration on kids being scared, as though we as adults can't be scared. Of course we're scared. I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep. It never stops. We're grown-ups; we know better, but we're afraid."

Reporter: "Why is that important in art?"

Sendak: "Because it's truth. You don't want to do something that's all terrifying. I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child's eyes. So what? I managed to survive."

women & happiness blog

2009-10-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Read my new blog at Psychology Today.

If you want.

Please don't bomb the moon

2009-09-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

from Comics & Serindipity

Dear NASA,

Are you INSANE?

You're rocket scientists. You're supposed to be smart. Bombing the moon is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Yes, I know there are already craters on the moon and asteroids hit it and stuff, and we probably won't even SEE the 5-mile chasm that your 2-ton load is going to blow. But do you really have any idea what you are DOING?? Don't you know the moon controls our tides, our crops--all bodies of water? Don't you know that human bodies are like, MOSTLY water?

And I don't care Mr. rocket scientist that you don't bleed it out every month--don't go releasing your man-period energy by blowing up stellar bodies, okay?!?

And I'm not worried about the alien inhabitants like some internerds out there, but I'll tell you one thing I know--the GODDESS is going to be fucking PISSED. You don't just go and blow up the Goddess's son/lover like that. Are you crazy? Don't you know 2012 is coming up? Of course you do, you know everything. So you should know that it's probably not a good time to start fucking with planetary orbits and gravitational pulls. It all started with demoting Pluto the other year--you KNOW he was pissed. And though he may have sunk into a deep depression (or was that me), he's still here, (in retrograde, in Capricorn for the next 248 YEARS) and he's surely not fucking around. So my point is, you better not send that man-missile into space or else I'm gonna--What? It's ALREADY UP THERE?! You took advantage of the fact that the following week the entire world was in mourning over MJ to just slide it in under the radar, right? Well, I can say with conviction that the Moonwalker would NOT be happy about this.

NOT AT ALL.

You know what I'm really hoping? I hope I wake up tomorrow and find that this is all a big joke. People will laugh and tell me how gullible I am to believe such a thing. Bomb the Moon? Yeah, right. And I bleed from my crotch for 5 days every month and don't die. Give me a break.

Good Grease

2009-09-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

I am happy tonight because I am making some extremely high-fat vegan mashed potatoes.

And thinking of this poem by my old friend, Mary TallMountain...

Good Grease

The hunters went out with guns at dawn.

We had no meat in the village,

No food for the tribe and the dogs.

No caribou in the caches

All day we waited

At last!

As darkness hung at the river we children saw them far away.

Yes! They were carrying caribou!

We jumped and shouted

By the fires that night we feasted

The old ones clucked.

sucking and smacking, sopping the juices with sourdough bread.

The grease would warm us when the hungry winter howled.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX oozing, dripping and running down our chins,

brown hands shining with grease.

We talk of it when we see each other far from home.

Remember the marrow sweet in the bones?

We grabbed for them like candy.

Good Gooooood.

Good Grease

Thinking About Bonnie Tinker

2009-09-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

May 26, 1948- July 2, 2009

By Lisa Sinnett

There’s a kaleidoscope in the conservatory where I’ve stopped with my daughters. There’s a circular bed of sand with sticks and rocks, and above, the lenses and mirrors. We shift the sand around and look, and each time the picture is different. If you look deep inside a kaleidoscope, what you see is the ocean of patterns of light, surrounded by a rim of darkness, curving away like night falling.

Trying to write about Bonnie Tinker is kind of like this. The ways in which Bonnie touched people’s lives are complex, shifting and beautiful.

I first met Bonnie the Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns talent show fundraiser at our Quaker Conference. She was standing on her head in between acts to raise money—we connected somewhere in between a twenty-dollar bill and a bright pair of socks.

I didn’t know she’d had such a far-reaching effect on the world back then—At the conference, I came to know her as an amazing workshop-leading, music-loving, peace-activist luminary, and I needed what Bonnie and others in this fellowship believed at their very core: “We are learning that radical inclusion and radical love bring further light… Our experience with oppression in our own lives leads us to seek ways to bring our witness to bear in the struggles of other oppressed peoples.”

As I learned about her life, I would understand her beliefs more deeply As the roots that nourished her work as the Executive Director of Love Makes A Family, Inc.—the racially diverse group of sexual minorities and their allies in Oregon and Southwest Washington that came together to oppose anti-gay ballot measures in Oregon, and to accompany others who are doing the same kind of activism across our country.

With her wife, Sara Graham, Bonnie raised three kids—Alex, Josh, and Connie. A member of Multnomah Friends Meeting in Portland, Oregon, and of Seriously P.O.’d Grannies, she developed the LARA method for non-violent conflict resolution based on Gandhi’s principles. The Founder and Executive Director of Love Makes A Family, Inc., she also founded the oldest domestic violence shelter on the West Coast--Portland's Bradley Angle House, which is still in operation. Her family was the victor in a well-known Supreme Court case that set the precedent for free speech in schools—Tinker vs. Des Moines School District ruled students could protest war in school.

Love Makes a Family “seeks to provide a public voice for all families, especially for those subjected to social, economic and legal discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.”

Feeling this acceptance through Bonnie’s presence and work helped me to set down a mask that I had been forced to wear my whole life without knowing why. My mother knew that she was gay when she was a high school student in her rural Michigan school, but growing up, we never knew.

She told me: “I was married in 1959. We were told to be loyal to God and country.” The thought of acting on her feelings with her girlfriends? “Dangerous.” I asked her about this, but she became silent. “There was a girl. Two girls. People suspected them of being gay.” She was silent for a long time. “I thought one of them committed suicide.”

That was the secret about our family—and it was like we were in the Witness Protection Program. Everything felt tentative, like we were playacting for a program about a family instead of being a family, but not knowing what we were upholding or why. We had activity, but no intimacy. How can there be intimacy when one person in the family has had to sacrifice her identity in order to survive? Everyone was deeply affected by this. We had the burden of being her unwitting jailers—yet we were her protectors, too. And we didn’t know any of it until mom came out to us when she was in her fifties.

I am thankful to Bonnie Tinker and to all the other activists who are opening spaces for families, and liberating people like my mother, who I am finally getting to know.

Many people have written or spoken about Bonnie and her wife Sara Graham’s journey facing discrimination and obstacles during their decades together. Bonnie worked for full inclusion for same sex unions, not only domestic partnerships. In Bonnie’s own words. “The M word matters. It confers social standing. It confers social acceptance. Marriage confers legitimacy. Our children will be declared legitimate. Marriage is about families taking our place in society with full respect.”

But there is still work to be done.

If you ever met Bonnie in person, you would see how much she sought to understand other people’s perspectives, and promote the common ground that we share. If you could hear her calling on the Spirit of Tinkerbell to impeach George Bush, or if you could see her getting arrested with the Seriously Pissed Off Grannies, you’d know what a surprising, memorable, and creative human being she was.

She was killed in early July in Virginia, where she was attending a Quaker conference, when a Mack truck turned in front of the bicycle she was riding and ran her over.

I think of Bonnie’s way of being in the world now and I remember something that her younger brother Paul said once. He said, “I want to have eyes like bees, and see the world from all the different facets.” Bees see the world complete, one perspective at a time. Bees see colors we don’t see. They see sunbursts of blue and red where we see only white.

Thank you, Bonnie, for helping us to open our eyes and see the world a little bigger. We’ll miss you.

With Love,
Lisa Anne Sinnett
Detroit, Michigan

Check out Love Makes a Family of Oregon

Bonnie Tinker: Clap if You Believe

Two!

2009-08-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Maximilian turned two & started owning his "nope!" real good, and flinging himself toward certain danger at every chance, and howling when parental hands pull him back.

I remember this stage from my last kid--but back then I cried that I must be a bad mama when my friends sighed "kids today," and waiters sneered, and acquaintances hummed "no child of mine would ever..."

Now I just wish them and their imaginary well-behaved children well.

I know there are probably a hundred and one ways to be a better mama than me, but I have been thinking about it for a long time and haven't come up with many of them.

So I guess I'm just going to be me.

Thinking about my Gammie Evelyn...

2009-08-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

How cute is she?! - I just came across this clipping from the LA Times - January 13, 1939... The weird thing is that she looks roughly the same in the photo below - 70 years later - right? - We imagine we change so much - and what changes, really?

Big Red

2009-08-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

I am sad this morning because my Gammie Evelyn died. Here's a picture from when she came to Portland last month for her 91st birthday. (with Maria, Shannon Wheeler, my mom & lil' tuxedo Max)... And an incomplete story I wrote a few months ago...

Big Red

My Gammie Evelyn drives a big red Cadillac. She calls it Big Red and it smells like Coco Chanel.

We speed all over Orange County because Big Red can handle the speed bumps and the police never stop my Gammie when she’s driving Big Red. It’s summertime, of course. It’s always summertime in Orange County because I’m on break from school and the sun is shining. It might be summer break or Thanksgiving break or winter break or spring break. It doesn’t matter. It’s summertime when she picks me up at John Wayne Airport and my Gammie says, “You’re beautiful, Ariel, but you’ve got to be kidding with that hair. Can’t you put it up? I mean, honestly.”

“You’re marvelous of course,” she says. "Do you have a beau?”

“No,” I tell my Gammie. I don’t have a beau.

And she says, “Well, not now, but soon the fellows will want to take you out and just remember, you don’t pay. When a fellow takes you out, he pays the bill."

I am 12 years old and I listen intently because my Gammie is beautiful and she wears red lipstick and she paints her long fingernails red and she wears her hair in a bun tied with a bright red scarf as she speeds down the Pacific Coast Highway in Big Red.

My Gammie Evelyn's house is painted coral orange.

Inside, there is soft, plush coral carpet, and in the guest bedroom soft, plush yellow monogrammed towels.

How are her towels always so soft?

On the low black coffee table in the living room there's a big crystal bowl full of mint and chocolate candy.

How is the candy never stale?

I sit on the plush carpet in front of the coffee table and I eat and I eat and I wonder how my grandmother keeps the bowl full, how she keeps herself from eating it all when she gets up in the middle of the night to pour herself a glass of milk and bourbon.

Gammie Evelyn's advice

2009-08-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

Evelyn Mae Lewis
1918 - 2009

Here is Gammie Evelyn's advice to Leslie (and everyone...)

"No one will ever be pretty enough, but anyone can have style."

"Turned on women can't afford to look cheap!"

"Marry a man you know will cheat so he can't say anything when you do."

"Keep it even. This is more important than communication."

Gratitude and thank-you notes to grandmas everywhere.

I Am Your Healthcare Reform

2009-08-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

(Letter from an old-school hip mama mama)

I'm writing this today not because I'm out to change anyone's mind, or because I see myself as a political activist, but because our daughter lives with an on-going, critical need for healthcare, and because I want everyone to be able to put a face to the idea of healthcare reform. And what better face than our goofy, gorgeous, brave baby girl's?

Most of you know Sophie, and my guess is that if you know her, you love her. She's just about the most lovable and kind person ever born. But many of you probably don't know about the struggles that Sophie has faced, nor those that we have faced as a family because of her chronic condition. We're pretty private about a lot of this stuff, because, well, it isn't really anyone's business but our own, but I feel like this is an important time for honesty.

We moved from Colorado to Tulsa in Spring, 2003. At that time Sophie was two years old, and was the healthiest kid that you had ever met. In the two years she lived in Colorado, she had one stomach virus and two colds. Within a month of moving to Tulsa, Sophie developed pneumonia. And then weeks after that, she had it again. And then weeks after that, she had it again. This was a frustrating time, but we weren't too worried yet. We just kept going back to the doctor and getting more antibiotics and more steroids.

In fall of 2005, we decided to switch from our private, self-employment insurance that we had used for years to Blue Cross. There was a week long gap between the policies--something that we didn't think anything of, because we simply did not know better. Just as our Blue Cross plan was set to start, we received a notice from them stating that they considered Sophie to have a pre-existing pulmonary problem (due to the amount of doctor's visits for pneumonia), and that while they would cover her in general, they wouldn't cover any pulmonary/respiratory issues until she had gone two years without needing medication or problems.

Our reaction: OMG. Actually I believe it was OMFG.

All of a sudden, Sophie was without coverage for pulmonary problems. This was absolutely terrifying. What if she got sick?! What if she needed to be hospitalized?! We spent the next couple of months researching every insurance company that we could, begging them to take Sophie.

It wasn't going to happen.

And then our biggest fear came true: Sophie got very, very sick. And I'm ashamed to say that although we knew that she was incredibly ill, we actually considered keeping her home from the doctor's office, as we knew that this would be yet another strike against her getting insurance. Luckily we pulled our heads out of our asses and took her to the doctor anyway, and it's good that we did, because Sophie was so critically ill that she was sent straight from the doctor's office to ICU. She was so sick that we couldn't even wait for an ambulance; they helped me throw our limp, blue daughter into our car, and I drove like hell to get her to the hospital next door.

Let me state that very clearly one more time: we almost didn't take our baby girl, who was in severe respiratory distress, to the doctor because we knew that it would hurt her chances of getting insurance.

I realize that your reality of living in the U.S. and of health insurance is likely very different than this. But I'm going to ask you to sit for a moment and imagine being in our shoes in that situation. Imagine the shame and guilt of almost keeping your child home from the hospital until it was too late, and then imagine the horror of seeing your child naked in ICU, hooked to many different machines. There is no way to describe how this felt.

One night in ICU? $10,000, not covered by insurance.

After this hospitalization, we were approached by a hospital social worker, who suggested we apply for SoonerCare. SoonerCare is Oklahoma's Medicaid program for kids. Luckily I'm a social worker who was working for a non-profit at the time, so we had no problems meeting financial criteria. SoonerCare does NOT exclude kids for pre-existing conditions, and it covers Sophie's medications and treatment 100%.

Since that horrible October in 2005, Sophie has needed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of treatments, hospitalizations, surgeries, medications, testing, and interventions in order to stay strong and healthy, and in some instances, to stay alive.

Since SoonerCare is the only insurance that will accept Sophie, we have to meet their financial criteria, which means living at or below the poverty level. I have had to quit wonderful jobs because I made too much money to qualify for SoonerCare. At this point I can only work either part-time, or for a very small salary, because we CANNOT afford to lose Sophie's healthcare coverage. It's the most important thing in our lives. We structure every single financial and professional decision we make around staying eligible for SoonerCare.

And while we'll gladly continue to live at the poverty level in order to provide our daughter with the healthcare that keeps her alive, we SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. We would happily pay outrageous premiums and co-pays, and do whatever else it took to get Sophie covered by regular health insurance. But you know what they all tell us?
She has to go two years with no pulmonary medications and no doctor's visits because of respiratory problems before anyone will accept her. Sophie can't go two DAYS without her medications, let alone two years.

As I mentioned earlier, I am not out to change anyone's opinion on what the government should do with healthcare. I simply want people to stop for a moment and realize that this issue strongly affects a little girl that they may love, a little girl who didn't ask for any of this, who didn't "bring it on herself", and who would give anything to get to live like a normal, healthy kid.
This problem is not going away for our family, or for the other families who are struggling terribly. It is only going to get more complicated.

Mt. Hood Haiku

2009-08-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

Maria and I made these for a Bark project,

But I think we missed the deadline.

Hell-yeah!

2009-08-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

Check it out--recent college graduate Trina Thompson is suing her alma mater for $72,000--the full cost of her tuition and then some--because she can't find a job.

I'm sure this sounds nutty to anyone who hasn't been to college recently, and I've never been pitched by this specific college (Munroe College in New York where Thompson got a degree in business administration), but I visited plenty of colleges with my daughter and, for real--every school we went promised work.

I still owe nearly $100,000 for my own higher education, but the colleges I went to--Mills and U.C. Berkeley--never promised me work. They touted education for education's sake. They suggested that degrees would help me find meaningful work, but the admissions folks didn't come anywhere near promising it.

That was more than 15 years ago.

Now, tuitions are off the map.

And every school I visited with my daughter (who started college two years ago) all but promised her a job upon graduation. They even specified salaries. THEY SPECIFIED SALARIES. And that's how they justified their $25,000+ annual tuitions.

And my kid was looking at art schools.

I can only imagine the pitch you get from business schools.

It's about time someone bring it back home. Yep. Sue them. Where is the job, o-expensive-alma-mater?

If education is valuable in its own right, which I think it is, let's start advertising it as such. And let's start charging the amount of money that it's worth (something relative to a professor's salaries, say?)

It's repulsive that schools charge a $25,000+ tuition, pay their professors the equivalent of one or two students' tuition, lie to kids about their futures, and then shrug it all off.

In the mean time, go Trina Thompson. Folks are going to give you a hard time. But I totally feel you.

Time to Register for Fall Writing Classes - CLASS FULL

2009-07-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

Eight-week class starts Sept. 15
ONLINE CLASS
LIT STAR TRAINING
Taught by Ariel Gore

The creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve our craft with practice and critique. Appropriate for writers working on longer projects as well as those who want to write to assignments and produce short essays and stories. The pace is quick and energizing--you won't even have time to worry about creative blocks. Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone coaching. Class size is limited, so please sign up early.

$275
$85 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

DO NOT PAY A DEPOSIT! WAIT LIST ONLY AS OF 8/5/09 - EMAIL ARIEL

I will also be teaching a 10-week memoir workshop and a 6-month book-writing workshop at The Attic in Portland. Get all the info & sign up at The Attic

the privilege of traveling

2009-07-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

I loved this post from from Ma'ia at guerrillamamamedicine

because I've been thinking about this a lot lately--about the way that sometimes when people point out your privilege it's helpful and real--helps you to open your eyes and see the things in your life you are taking for granted. And how sometimes people are just trying to silence you and make excuses for their own lack of courage:

i have been thinking about writing this post for a while. in part i have not done so because i do have lots of privilege and have been able to travel. and i felt awkward, felt like i was making myself vulnerable to criticism if i wrote this. but then i figured, fuck it.

i had one of those conversations that i seem to have every few months with someone new about how i do not take into account how privileged i am to be able to travel and live abroad. and how privileged i was to be partnered. when i talk about my experience of being a mother.

privilege. privilege. privilege.

1. i do take how much privileged i am into account. actually in some ways i am more aware of certain types of privilege because i travel. for instance, the power of my US citizenship comes into stark relief when i am abroad.

2. and i know that it is a privilege to be in a happy partnership, both of us dedicated to loving aza and each other.

3. but i also know that traveling and being partnered is not in and of itself simply privileged.

MOTHERS TRAVELING

let me see if i can put it this way:

through out history. as long as there have been wars. mothers have traveled with their children. they have to survive. they become refugees. they become slaves. they travel to find a safe place to live and create a life with their families. they leave home to flee abusive husbands, or advancing troops, to find doctors, to find lost family, to take care of sick family, to find work, to find food, to find peace.

yes it can be a privilege to travel.

but it can also be a privilege to stay home.

it can be a privilege to feel that where you are is probably safer than where you are not.

it is a privilege to have a place that you call home.

it should be a right, but for now it is a privilege.

PARTNERED

and my life has shown me intimately that being partnered can be a blessing or a curse. some mothers are happily partnered and some are terrorized and abused and forced to stay partnered. sometimes being a single mother is a privilege and being married is an oppression.

once upon a time in an empire far far away i gave up nearly everything i had just to get out of a relationship. and im glad we didnt have children together because if we had had them i pretty certain that he wouldnt have let me leave alive.

and i couldnt just leave the city. or the state. because he followed me. state to state.

i left the continent.

i left because i realized that i deserved to be happy. and for years i had been with him in a small southern town. still segregated. really trying to build community through artistic expression and space. really convinced that this was the important work. and that it didnt matter that i felt stifled. stay local. stay local. just nurture your garden. and if everyone did that then the world would be a better place. and all that.

and dont get me wrong. i believe in community building locally. i do. some of the most amazing community leaders i have known have not traveled more than 30 miles away from their home for their entire life.

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

but what i realized was that i dont believe in the kantian categorical imperative nature of the stay local ideology. i dont believe that something is ethical or moral if it fits into the formula of: if everyone did action a, the world would be a more peaceful place, and thus everyone *should* do action a.

its like in a wrinkle in time (do you remember that book?) and the kids get to the planet where all the houses are the same and all the kids are all bouncing their balls to the same exact rhythm, and then all the mothers come out of the houses at the same exact time and bring the kids inside. and they all are acting like robots?

that is what i think of when someone throws a kantian categorical imperative at me. if everyone did it…the world would be a better place.

REFUGEES

ok. you ever think of refugees as privileged? no? really? cause they are. in comparison to the folks who they left behind in that war zone. the sudanese refugees here in cairo are really privileged. let me put it in perspective: the capital of south sudan, jemba. has three paved roads. three. so what if the sudanese refugees can barely access decent health care are barred from enrolling in egyptian schools, live in ghettos, are harrassed constantly by the police, are suffering from ptsd, seperated from their families- that is the members of their families that are still alive-are ex sex slaves and child soldiers…

but they are privileged…and it was when i realized that that i thought: wtf does privilege mean?

and once i realize they are privileged…then what?

PRIVILEGE

once i realize i am privileged. that being able to leave a dangerous situation by any means necessary was a privileged act. then what?

and now years later, happily a mama, partnered, beloved, and living abroad. happy to live in a place where i feel safer. happy to create love. where does privilege fit into this? is privilege the reason that i am happy or is privilege contributing to my happiness? am i happy despite my privilege?

is living in a place where i feel reasonably safe a privilege? hell fucking yes it is.

is living in a place where it is safe to be loved and being able to love a privilege? yes.

do i have the privilege to determine for myself what is safe for me? yes.

do i have the privilege to determine that for me and mine it is safer for me to live in the west bank than in chicago? yes.

am i about to give up any of those ‘privileges’? nope.

am i a refugee? absolutely not.

am i a working class black mama with ’some college’, a us citizen able bodied with access to social class privilege who lives in cairo, egypt on scale with a middle class egyptian family?

RIDICULOUS FUCKING CONVERSATION

this is what i dont get. why every couple of months do i get in one of these fucking ridiculous conversations about single motherhood vs. partnered motherhood or working locally vs. globally?

can folks even tell why these fucking conversations are ridiculous?

how do you know the content of my life? how do you know that my husband isnt abusive? (he isnt but still…) how do you know the content of my marriage to the extent that you can determine that my partnership is obviously so much more privileged than your singlehood?

and how do you know that me traveling is more privileged than you staying home?

is there a way we can have a conversation about privilege and oppression that makes sense?

it was contemplating this. that i realized that i need to find a more accurate paradigm for figuring out who i center in my organizing…

Jim Crow-ly?

2009-07-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

Wait, is the cop kidding with that name?

(CNN) -- A Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer said Thursday he will "never apologize" about how he handled the arrest of prominent black Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

"That apology will never come from me as Jim Crowley, it won't come from me as sergeant in the Cambridge Police Department," Sgt. James Crowley told Boston radio station WEEI. "Whatever anybody else chooses to do in the name of the city of Cambridge or the Cambridge Police Department which are beyond my control, I don't worry about that. I know what I did was right. I have nothing to apologize for."

Crowley also said he was exercising caution and is clearly not a racist based on his previous actions.

thinking about Revolutionary Letter #19

2009-07-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

by Diane di Prima

(for the Poor People's Campaign)

if what you want is jobs
for everyone, you are still the enemy,
you have not thought thru, clearly what that means.

if what you want is housing, Industry
(G.E. on the Navaho reservation)
a car for everyone, garage, refrigerator,
TV, more plumbing, scientific
freeways, you are still
the enemy, you have chosen
to sacrifice the planet for a few years
of some science fiction utopia, if what you want

still is, or can be, schools
where all our kids are pushed into one shape, are taught
it's better to be "American" than black
or Indian, or Jap, or Puerto Rican, where Dick
and Jane become and are the dream, do you
look like Dick's father, don't you think your kid
secretly wishes you did

if what you want
is clinics where the AMA
can feed you pills to keep you weak, or sterile,
shoot germs into your kids, while Merck & Co. grows richer

if you want
free psychiatric help for everyone
so that the shrinks,
pimps for this decadence, can make
it flowers for us,

if you still want a piece
a small piece of suburbia, green lawn
laid down by the square foot
color TV, whose radiant energy
kills brain cells, whose subliminal ads
brainwash your children, have taken over
your dreams

degrees from universities which are nothing
more than slum landlords festering sinks of lies,
so you can go forth and lie to others
on some greeny campus

THEN YOU ARE STILL
THE ENEMY, you are selling
yourself short, remember
you can have what you ask for, ask for
everything

assignment

2009-07-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

the assignment was to walk my neighborhood

and take 5 pictures. just 5.

this is my girlfriend's bike. her last bike got

crushed on the summer solstice, along with

the baby seat, while it was locked to another

'no parking' sign outside our house. coming

home to see the bike mangled under someone's

minivan, and the baby seat too, made me think

we should leave town.

i walk under this underpass every day,

but i've never noticed this sign before.

what does it mean?

i love the way you can be in any little podunk corner

of town and a train track makes the space instantly

urban. the kids honor it as urban with their paint.

if we leave town, i will miss the co-op, and the little

juice stand in front of it, even if it takes a while to

get your juice sometimes because the girl walks away

and picks the ingredients from a garden down the

street to make your juice.

i think if we leave i will miss the ease

with which things grow here.

first haircut

2009-07-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

Queer as Portland

2009-07-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

Review in Portland Mercury

Diversity on Display in Portland Queer
(published on my birthday!)

The submission guidelines were simple, Ariel Gore explains in her introduction to the anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City. "First-person narratives by queer writers about queer characters in Portland, Oregon." The guidelines are so simple, in fact, that they function as a sort of creative litmus test.

Some writers take the obvious route: There are the predictable I-was-such-a-freak-in-high-school coming-of age stories, and the the-word-queer-is-so-empowering coming-out stories. In some of the best stories in the book, though, the narrator's sexual identity is part of the story's background, rather than its focus. Local musician sts, for example, writes of her friendship with a neighbor boy, a troubled, parentless kid who's living unhappily with his sick aunt. It's a fine piece of writing, conveying subtle volumes in its scant seven pages.

Another standout comes from Michael Sage Ricci, whose "The Strange and Highly Selective Mating Patterns of the Human Male Animal" has the best premise in the collection: A videogame addicted gay man adopts a female avatar when playing online role-playing games. Pretending to be a woman, he develops a flirtation with another gamer, a straight man, letting the man believe he's a woman. When the two arrange to meet in real life, a curious revenge fantasy unfolds.

One story that does effectively foreground queer issues is Christa Orth's "Not Following the Rules." Orth's story begins with an account of her efforts to convince the University of Oregon to extend non-discrimination protections to transgendered workers. The difficulty in persuading the university that there was a need for such protections inspired her to begin investigating the history of queers in the workplace. She provides two local case studies, of a lesbian working at Tektronix in the mid-'90s advocating for benefits for same-sex partners, and an openly gay switchboard operator in the 1970s. It's fascinating stuff. Orth could get a book of her own out of material like this, and I hope that she does.

Gore's editing here deserves a nod: The characters in Portland Queer are fittingly varied, ranging from angsty young lesbians to middle-aged evangelical gays; from kids still figuring out what pronoun they want to use to HIV-positive men remembering long-dead lovers. It's a collection as diverse as the community it represents.

On the fly

2009-06-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

Very cool - the writers from my winter online class have put together a great collection of their best "quick writes"--fiction and creative non-fiction stories written in eight minutes or less.

You can get a copy of On the Fly from Lulu.

Tonight & tomorrow

2009-06-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Don't forget - Portland Queer reading TONIGHT 6/23 at In Other Words in NE Portland. Tomorrow night 6/24 at Bluestocking on the lower east side NYC. Both at 7 pm!

Thanks, Yolanda

2009-06-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

I got yummy mail art!

Weird Monologues for a Rainy Life

2009-06-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

Yay! Student o' mine and all-around creative genius Lorette C. Luzajic has a new book out from Handymaiden Editions...

Weird Monologues for a Rainy Life is a collection of art manifestos, book reviews, short stories, blogs, pop culture essays and a surprising number of requiems.

You’ll meet monks, drug addicts, men in dresses, and Dad; Captain Stardust and Nancy Drew, a cat named Knerpie and a chap named The John Bennett. Her Royal Highness Diana makes an appearance, as does The Hermit, Scarlett O’Hara, Sayuri the geisha, and me!

Lorette says, “The whole idea of this book was to combine a range of my stories, blogs, musings, reviews, and so on, from all over the map, in a way that spanned my wild mood swings, the ups and downs, the embarrassing and the brilliant... That I often feel vulnerable, naked, over-revealed kept me from writing for too long- there’s always an element of self-censorship and it just doesn’t get to the heart. The minute I stopped fearing this exposure was the moment I started to grow as a writer. Symbolically, this is me naked, messy, crazy, everybody’s sister.”

Check it out here!

Upcoming Portland Queer & Portland Noir events...

2009-06-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

We had an amazing reading at Broadway Books June 8 & another at Reading Frenzy June 16... Read all about the Broadway Books one here.

And come to all the upcoming dates in Portland, Oregon & New York, New York

In Other Words – NE Portland – Tuesday, June 23, 7 p.m.
Featuring: sts, Jacob Anderson-Minshall, Jacqueline Raphael, J.T. Neel, Megan Kruse, & me

PORTLAND NOIR event - June 18 at Looking Glass Bookstore, 7983 S.E. 13th Ave. in Sellwood - 7 p.m. - featuring Ariel Gore, Kevin Sampsell, Floyd Skloot & Megan Kruse...

Bluestockings – New York, lower east side – Wednesday, June 24, 7 p.m.
Featuring: Christa Orth, Gabrielle Rivera, David Ciminello & Stevie Anntonym

Powell’s City of Books on Burnside – Downtown Portland – Tuesday, June 30, 7:30 p.m.
Featuring: Lois Leveen, Wayne Gregory, Dexter Flowers, Donal Mosher, & me

Q Literati! – Q Center – N Portland – Wednesday, July 8, 7 p.m.
Featuring: Nicole Vaicunas, Jacob Anderson-Minshall, David Oates, Lois Leveen

Portland Queer

2009-05-22T11:00:00.001-07:00

The new anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City is here!

As rough-hewn and gorgeous as the city that inspired it, this anthology breaks queer ground as it shows us that everywhere is Portland — but Portland is its own special place, home to queers seeking and finding home, from the city itself to each others’ arms.
—Daphne Gottlieb, author of Kissing Dead Girls

Get your copy! I think you'll like it...

EVENTS
In Portland, Oregon & New York, New York
Most events hosted by Ariel Gore

Broadway Books - NE Portland - Monday, June 8, 7 p.m.
Featuring:
Tom Spanbauer
Michael Sage Ricci
Colleen Siviter
Dexter Flowers

Reading Frenzy – Downtown Portland – Tuesday June 16, 7 p.m.
Featuring:
Lois Leveen
Michael Sage Ricci
Jacqueline Raphael
Nicole Vaicunas

In Other Words – NE Portland – Tuesday, June 23, 7 p.m.
Featuring:
sts
Jacob Anderson-Minshall
J.T. Neel
Megan Kruse

Bluestockings – New York, lower east side – Wednesday, June 24, 7 p.m.
Featuring:
Christa Orth
Gabrielle Rivera
David Ciminello
Stevie Anntonym

Powell’s City of Books on Burnside – Downtown Portland – Tuesday, June 30, 7:30 p.m.
Featuring:
Wayne Gregory
Dexter Flowers
Donal Mosher

Q Literati! – Q Center – SE Portland – Wednesday, July 8, 7 p.m.
Featuring:
Nicole Vaicunas
Jacob Anderson-Minshall
David Oates
Lois Leveen

New Online Class Starts in June - CLASS FULL

2009-05-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

June 24 - August 20
LIT STAR TRAINING
Taught by Ariel Gore

The creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve out craft with practice and critique. In the beginning of the workshop, you'll choose an organizing theme that will allow you to produce seven new stories--either thematically-related short pieces or parts of a longer project. And you'll be off! You won't even have time to worry about creative blocks. Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone coaching. Class size is limited.

CLASS FULL E-MAIL ARIEL IF YOU WANT TO GET ON THE WAITING LIST
$275

$90 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

I have a voice that I have been working on, mining you might say. I have always had a deep longing to unearth the missing parts of myself that have been buried. In order to survive growing up, I had to bury myself along the way.

--Karin Marsh

a sketch of pregnant ariel

2009-05-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

reading at the richmond zine fest...

hip mama mother's day party

2009-04-30T08:22:00.001-07:00

Hip Mama's annual Mother Day's party is May 10th at the watershed in Portland.
Get all the info at hipmamazine.com . . .

modern love

2009-04-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I was out of the loop / at Mt. Shasta when it happened, but my memoir writing student Margaret Gunther got her story in The New York Times. Belated congratulations!

viking

2009-04-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Katherina finds that it's not easy being a Viking in a modern world.

wanderlust wonderland circus

2009-04-26T20:35:00.001-07:00

We were treated to the Wonderland Circus show last night--a mad tea party & Alice-themed extravaganza put on by the Wanderslust Circus. The show is totally worthwhile--Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum were especially delightful. We dug the Trashcan Joe Orchestra, too. Leapin' Louie is always a joy, and Cherry is pure-hearted & wild. Sadie LaGuerre made an inspired Red Queen and the Cheshire Cat might even make you want to take up yoga...

It's all at the Bossanova Ballroom on E. Burnside in Portland--and there are more shows next weekend. You might like it!

The show actually started at 8 pm (doors open at 7) and there was some grumpy-making confusion about that. (Why say a show goes from 7 pm to 11 pm when it goes from 8 pm to 10 pm?). The venue is 21 & up which is too bad--folks of all ages could grove with it all. AND NOTE!--the cheaper tickets are all you need. The ballroom is a small venue and the food you get with the pricey seats is awful. The "selection of entrees" started with white bread and mayonaise sandwiches and then these miniscule cupcakes you might get day-old from Costco. Then on to a second course of stuffed portobello mushrooms, but the mushrooms were totally raw and the stuffing might as well have been ranch dressing. There was abysinthe, which was good, but hardly worth the extra $30 for the food-service seats. Better to go for the $15 or $30 tickets--that's splurge enough--eat dinner at home, get a drink from the bar for $5, and enjoy the show!

free acupuncture

2009-04-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo - Saturday is Free Day at Brooklyn Community Acupuncture In Portland. 9 a.m. to noon. No appointments... you just head on over & get needled for whatever ails you.

portland noir

2009-04-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

"The kids lined the wall outside the Clinton Street Theater in the sepia-lit mist, waiting to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The girls with their big purple hair and skimpy dresses; the boys in tight black bodices or boxy leather jackets. Cold November night. They clutched their rolled-up newspapers and cups of rice, hid water guns in their pockets. I squinted at them through the drizzle—a time warp to the '90s, to the '80s, to the '70s. Bygone eras. I ducked into the dim red of Dots Café, slipped into a soft gold booth. The waitress had a tattoo of a hamburger on her shoulder. She nodded at me. "The usual?"...

—(Water Under The bridge by Ariel Gore)

Hey, I have a new story in a new book... read it all in Portland Noir edited by Kevin Sampsell

Get a haircut

2009-04-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

This here website is now accepting submissions of flash fiction and flash memoir (stories up to 350 words) as well as photos/art on the subject of HAIRCUTS.

Deadline is April 13th.

Send me something: Ariel

Hip Mama fiction contest

2009-03-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

It's time to make something up!

For all of you beautiful liars out there- Hip Mama is gonna be breaking some fresh ground and doing a Short Story Contest judged by Kerlin Richter and Ariel Gore.

First Prize is $100, your Short Story as the feature in issue 44, the Creativity issue, along with a profile and picture of your brilliant self, AND a Lifetime Subscription to Hip Mama (we don't even sell lifetime subscriptions anymore).

Ten runners up will get a four issue subscription, their names and story titles in the zine and their full stories will be published online.

Get all the info right here

$25 per story entry fee

And check out the new issue of Hip Mama on Utne.com

debt

2009-03-11T11:14:00.001-07:00

Maybe it's because I'm not getting any younger or maybe it's because of the crowd I've been running with or maybe it's just the time we're living in, but I'm hearing an awful lot of anxiety about all the debt we're in.

Credit card debt especially.

You're maxed out and they're raising your APR something crazy.

And I know credit cards. I've got some of them. And I know anxiety. I've got some of that, too. But how many nights sleep are we going to lose over it?

We don't need good credit. We don't need credit cards. We didn't used to have those things and we can live without them again.

My friend K says, "c'mon, what if your car breaks down and you need to fix it, well, you'll need a credit card then."

What I'll need is a bicycle and a bus schedule.

Good credit is nice. You should keep it if you can. But plenty of people live perfectly normal lives with really bad credit.

There are no debtor's prisons.

The worst-case scenarios:

They tell you to cut up your credit cards. They take away your car in the night. Maybe they even take your house. (That last one really sucks, I know).

But then you figure out how to get an apartment. And you get that bicycle and you get that bus pass. And you tell the collection agents to stop calling you. And you send them a letter and you "cc" the attorney general and you insist that they stop calling you. And it's OK. You have your body. You have your creative mind. You have the moon and the stars and you have every right to be here. And you have every right to a good night's sleep.

And repeat after me: There are no debtor's prisons.

love

2009-03-02T09:06:00.000-08:00

I was just email-talking with another editor woman & she was lamenting the myth of The One--and haven't we gotten past relationship as the ultimate validation?

What's up with the hysterical fear of not meeting The One?

Is it about wanting kids and the fear of single motherhood?

Or is it something else?

hungry

2009-03-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

So I went wheat-free vegan no-sugar for lent.

What should I eat?

Give me the recipe!

I'm getting hungry...

(thanks).

Sign up now for the springtime online writing class

2009-02-13T10:49:00.000-08:00

Class FULL - email Ariel if you want to get on the waiting list

It’s time to register for the Springtime Lit Star Training--the online writing class will go from April 4th through May 31st.

These classes tend to fill up pretty fast, so sign up now if you’re interested.

$275 for the 8-week class

Orleans

2009-02-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

Home from beautiful New Orleans.

We tripped into town on Friday night. Saturday, Maria and I got crystal ball readings... learned that in our past lives, I collaborated with the Mexican revolution and she was a gypsy on the Adriatic.

We wonder if the crystal ball ever reveals that someone was a fat housewife who smoked a pack a day.

I mean, Mexico and Romania are lovely. But we want to know what happened in Jersey.

We walk... So many neighborhoods... Later, Coleen tells us that things had finally started to get back to something-like-normal after the storm... but then the economy all topsy-turvy. Still so much damage and tourism stalled and there's something beautiful for sale on every block. We imagine lives in the for-sale houses; walk a long way to St. Roch cemetery...

From there, we find our way to F & F Botanica where Felix sells us some fancy oils and candles to take to St. Louis #1 cemetery. We walk more. It's hot and lovely and the baby is trying to be a good sport.

F&F

At St. Louis #1, we look and look for my ancestor's tomb. Finally we find the first wife of one of my ancestors and we search all around that spot for my actual ancestor, but she isn't there. I feel disoriented by the labyrinth of walkways. A headache coming on because I forgot to wear a hat. But we find Marie Laveau's X-marked tomb and leave a candle for her and lucky New Years trinket love we think she'll like.

The next day in the wild & beautiful Voodoo Spiritual Temple, I pick up a little book about the cemetery, open it randomly, and there's my ancestor's tomb! We walk back over to the cemetery with the peace candle we got from Felix and finally we find it--we'd been standing right in front of it, taking pictures of Max and spinning around and wondering where the ancestor could be.

Mightta been those 10-cent martinis.

mail

2009-01-23T10:39:00.000-08:00

I love getting mail! Mostly I love mail art. Today I got a great letter from Summer Pierre in Brooklyn... who I didn't know before.

And this totally inspiring zine of her one-page stories... Beautiful, illustrated stories in just one page each! You should get it, too... Go to summerpierre.com

January

2009-01-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

I didn't make any resolutions in particular this year, but I love the way that January always feels new, goal-lovely, inspired. The business news every day is dire. The end of capitalism is very inconvenient indeed. Writers and everyone else—we're all facing our "own private Detroit" as Susie Bright puts it.

And still!

I'm excited about projects the way I'm always excited in January.

And again in April for the real new year.

And in June for my birthday.

And in September because the leaves turn and school starts.

The particular months are arbitrary—or they aren't.

The equinoxes and the solstices.

The timing is energetic—and it's pure potentiality.

I am not voting for the current dire collective hallucinations.

Sure, whitey has emptied the tills for real this time and is carpet-bagging his way outta Washington. Good riddance.

I'm excited about projects big and small. And I'm looking forward to all the cheap art and creative sustenance you will send me in the mail.

Don't you know?

Spring Break Writer's Retreat March 22 - 28th

2008-12-28T08:15:00.000-08:00

Yep - it's camp for grown-ups!

Seven-day writing workshop & retreat at Stewart Mineral Springs in Northern California

Spend a week writing and attending daily writing workshop with Ariel Gore in the spectacular Trinity Mountains of Shasta National Forest.

Here's the plan:
Sunday, March 22 - Arrive at Stewart Mineral Springs in the beautiful Trinity Mountains of Shasta National Forest, get settled into your room, meet Ariel and your fellow writers for an evening quick-write, and share a vegetarian dinner.

Monday - Friday March 23rd through 27th - Writing workshops will be held each morning from 10 a.m. to Noon. We'll produce new material, workshop stories you've come with or stories you've begun to craft here in the mountains. You'll have the afternoon to write, hike, swim in the creek, and sweat in the sauna. We'll share three simple, hearty vegetarian meals each day.

Saturday, March 28. We'll have breakfast together-- and end the week by joining the sacred sweat lodge purification ceremony on the grounds of Stewart Mineral Springs at 1 p.m.

One Writer - $650 - Price includes all writing workshops, six nights lodging in a shared room (bring a friend or bunk with another writer), unlimited sauna use, vegetarian dinner on Sunday, three hearty vegetarian meals per day on the weekdays, breakfast on Saturday, and Native American sweat lodge on Saturday.

$200 deposit saves your spot

Writer's Companion - $380 - Companion rate includes six nights lodging in a shared room, unlimited sauna use, all meals, and Native American sweat lodge on Saturday. (No writing workshops).

$100 deposit saves your spot

Mineral soaks and massages cost a little extra. Stewart Mineral Springs is 350 miles south of Portland, Oregon and 280 miles north of San Francisco -- near Weed, California.

New Online Class Starts in January - CLASS FULL

2008-12-27T08:20:00.000-08:00

This was best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

January 5 - March 1
LIT STAR TRAINING
Taught by Ariel Gore

The creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve out craft with practice and critique. In the beginning of the workshop, you'll choose an organizing theme that will allow you to produce seven new stories--either thematically-related short pieces or parts of a longer project. And you'll be off! You won't even have time to worry about creative blocks. Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone coaching. Class size is limited.

$275

CLASS FULL - EMAIL IF YOU WANT TO BE ON A WAITING LIST

$75 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts
I have a voice that I have been working on, mining you might say. I have always had a deep longing to unearth the missing parts of myself that have been buried. In order to survive growing up, I had to bury myself along the way.

--Karin Marsh

home from mexico

2008-12-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

Maybe it wasn't the most relaxing trip ever, but it was beautiful... Got stuck in Houston for two days on the way down over a couple of snow flurries and a lot of Continental Airlines lies & incompetence.

Finally busted out of the airport to go to free night at the Houston Children's Museum and stay at the lovely ho-mall Travelodge totally not on the airline's dime.

But on the third day we finally flew away to Mexico City, and flew again, and landed in Oaxaca, and we ran from the little airport and told the taxi driver to please hurry because the baby's grandmother was waiting for him in the church. We made it in time for the last mass on Guadalupe day and presented him to the Virgin... He was the only gringo Juan Diego there. All blessed with his eyeliner mustache.

And then the writing workshop! And twelve witchy women with wild and true stories of love and church and the violence of life.

And the power of literature because even when they weren't true we believed them. And we believed in them.

And there is more. But I am just home. And it is snowing. And I am tired and want some more coffee. And it seems that all the pictures of Mexico are pictures of Max...

Oaxaca love

2008-12-07T19:21:00.001-08:00

Woo hoo! Going to Oaxaca next week for the writing workshop. Check out this amazing slide show about the "muxes" of Juchitan in Southern Oaxaca...

Brooklyn Community Acupuncture Fun

2008-11-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

You must come to the Brooklyn Community Acupuncture fundraiser & silent auction on Saturday, December 6th from 4 pm - 7 pm

At Maria's clinic... 1212 SE Powell Blvd. in Portland

It's free & kids are welcome

There will be lots of food and drink, live music by E Bene Placita & Woke Up Wrong & a super-cool silent auction with lots of local art work including these and other paintings by Eli Halpin, paintings by Ben Clark, dozens of massage gift certificates, astrological readings, a writing workshop with me, personal training sessions, Flamenco dance classes, and gift certificates to local restaurants... Yum! See you there. Get directions & more info here

hip mama singapore!

2008-11-28T22:10:00.001-08:00

I will survive

2008-11-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

We finally got to rent Young @ Heart, and watch the movie in its entirety. We'd tried to see it at the fabulous Academy Theater, but the baby geeked out in the daycare room half-way through and they called us to come and get him and off we went, left in suspense!

But all things happen for a reason, as the new agers say, and as transcendent as Young @ Heart is on the big screen, home was a comfier place to take it in AND, more importantly, one of the very best music videos in the whole movie is actually in the "deleted scenes"--so you HAVE TO get the DVD.

Or see it on the big screen and see the deleted music video here. (Deleted? Why? These ladies were robbed!)

Uninvited

2008-11-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes being a mama feels exactly like being in high school. You're thrown in with a group of people you have nothing in common with but a life-stage and the slightly elevated chance they'll be on psycho-pharms.

The other day I took Max to Urban Grind, this lovely kid-friendly cafe in my neighborhood. It has big play rooms and strong coffee.

There were at least a dozen other kids Max's age. He loved them! They all played with the big Legos and chased each other down the plastic slide.

I couldn't believe our luck. So many kids.

And then another mama asked, "Are you here for the meet-up?"

"No," I shrugged. "We're just randomly here."

"Oh," the woman smiled. "Well, we have this meet-up every week. Our kids are between one and eighteen months. You can check on line to see where we'll meet next. And..."

"And," another mom interrupted, brushing the crumbs off her Urban Outfitters sweat jacket. "We're actually closed to new members."

There was this collective silence among all the mamas in which I wondered if I'd misunderstood. I contemplated asking: Do you know who I am? But I just nodded. "Oh," I said. "Right. Oh well."

It was exactly how I always felt in high school. Invited and then uninvited to the cool kids' party. I dropped out of high school.

It was exactly how I always felt when I was a teen mom. Excluded. Alienated. But back then I always figured it was because I was too young. I figured they thought I was a loser shit because I was 19 and they were 34. A clear case of discrimination.

But now they are still 34. And I am 38.

And I am learning. And learning again. That it isn't my age. I am just

fundamentally

alienated

from

parenting

culture.

What's your experience being fat?

2008-11-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

A student of mine is working on a project about the experience of being a fat woman in America and looking for input... Please help! She's especially interested in hearing from fat women, but all are welcome.

There's no judgment here--we live in a society where fat is bad, we know that. Be honest, and have no fear! Post your answers here or email Shell. Answer one or a few of the questions--whichever inspire your imagination.

How do you feel when you hear a woman described as fat? Neutral? Sad? Sorry for them? Pissed at the skinny asshole who is describing?

What could the real experiences of a fat woman (funny, sad, delightful, sexual, honest accounts of discriminaton) provoke in readers accustomed to weight-loss memoirs?

In your opinion, is fat discrimination comparable to racism, sexism, homophobia? Why? Why not?

What immediately comes to mind when you think about clothes for fat women?

What images do you see when you think about fat women as sexual? How are these images the same or different than the sexuality America pushes

in glossy mags?

Why do you think "fat" is scary to many people?

temporary recession pricing for workshops

2008-11-10T09:40:00.001-08:00

If you're thinking about signing up for the January online class or the Retreat at Mt. Shasta, I'm offering temporary recession pricing. Sign up now...

Lit Star Training

Spring Break Mt. Shasta Retreat

watching the returns

2008-11-05T11:49:00.000-08:00

OBAMA!

But...

What the F is up with California? Did folks for real go to the polls and vote for Obama and against marriage? Yes they did. Way to put the downer on my election party, dude. But I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

Black voters only make up 6.2 percent of California's electorate, but they're already taking part of the blame for this one--exit polls show that 70 percent of black voters said no on the marriage question. Ouch. Pam Spaulding blogged, "The belief that "white equals gay" is a big part of the problem. As long as black LGBTs are invisible in their own communities and there is a dearth of color in the public face of LGBT leadership, the socially-conservative black community can remain in denial that I exist as a black lesbian."

But being for Obama doesn't make anyone all about equality. Oregon's electorate is largely white, and they prove themselves blue & homophobic every time.

Sigh.

"Like I Had Wings"

2008-10-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

In memory of Lori Maliszewski

I often don't know all the reasons why a student shows up in one of my memoir workshops. At a first meeting, I ask writers to introduce themselves and tell us what brings them to the class. They share a little piece of the truth. That's all there's time for.

When Lori Maliszewski appeared in my workshop at The Attic five years ago, she said she wanted to write about some recent changes in her life. And then she proceeded to do all of the assignments. It wasn't until the last week of class that I got an email explaining one of those recent changes: "I have terminal cancer," Lori wrote.

Lori wanted to write about her cancer, but she didn't want to upset the other writers in the group. And she she didn't want a pity party.

I promised her that we would have no pity party.

And so Lori began to write the story she'd come to The Attic to write.

"My mouth was dry that day when I read the piece in class," Lori later wrote, "but as I finished up, no lightening bolts appeared to strike me down, and nobody died or even fainted. The silence was a bit longer than normal after I finished reading it but... to my great relief, most of the conversation focused on the writing. I did not feel singled out as a sick person--not one bit. I felt light, like I had wings, as if I couldn't be grounded by cancer."

Lori signed up for the next term of the memoir workshop and the next. She formed a group with other students and they met on their own. Lori had "the good kind of cancer," she said. Her life would be "measured in years, not months." And so she spent those years writing, and bringing her stories and essays to the morning memoir group.

Late last summer, I got the invitation to Lori's book release party. Cancer: A Love Story was out from Lulu Press. I had a baby due five days before the party, but the baby could wait.

"I'll be there," I promised.

I hadn't seen Lori in a few months. She was stick-thin and sick from the chemo, but she glowed joyous. She'd done it. A real book! She signed my copy Thanks for everything, xxxooo. And then I went into labor.

In Chapter Thirteen, Lori wrote:
Life has a way of reassembling atoms and molecules into something new and out of my death came a new me. I look at old pictures of myself and remember that person with both longing and compassion. I went through life for 45 years without even considering that death hid around the corner. What freedom that afforded me. Freedom to dream of a future with the belief that it would happen. Freedom to say, "I'll do that some other day." Freedom to never rest, knowing that I had time for that later. Freedom to procrastinate pursuing my dreams. What an innocent, lucky fool I was, completely ignorant to the possibility of a perfectly tragic ending.

Lori died on Tuesday morning--not tragically, but surrounded by her family, having had these last years to pursue her dreams.

We will miss her.

Lori's memoir is available from Lulu Press: Cancer: A Love Story

2008-10-20T20:52:00.001-07:00

An open letter from teen mama Amy Pace

2008-10-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

With all the media and political talking heads yakking about teen, unwed, or single mothers these days, I have a wake up call for everybody...

I have been a teen mother. I have lived with a man just to keep my baby. I graduated from a high school for teen mothers. I have been a single mother for eight years. I know a bit about this issue. Most of these politicos and talking heads have never lived my life, never had an inkling of what it's REALLY like to have a baby at sixteen and another at nineteen, and I cannot be silent about this subject that has, for the last few days, replaced the MISSING WHITE WOMAN headlines or CELEBRATY O.D.s on 24 hour "news." This does not happen often. Maybe in the last year, teen moms have been on the radar, in the form of US Magazine or whatever trash people are reading these days, because of what? Britney Spears, our tabloid queen, with more covers than Princess Diana, her little sister got pregnant at sixteen, sold her story to a trashy magazine for a million dollars, and suddenly teen pregnancy is a hot topic again--that and the fact that it has, for the first time in decades, increased. If the topic of teen/single moms can only be brought up because of some chick I've never heard of, in a National Enquirer-type magazine, which sadly is more widely read than newspapers.....Well, I quote Thomas Jefferson: "I tremble for the fate of my country."

I am not Jamie Spears. I am not a millionaire fake celeb. I am not Bristol Palin. Do you think either of these girls will walk into their local welfare office and wait hours, just for that extra $100 a month in foodstamps? Will they ever spend week after week on the phone with operators hired by a privatized Medicaid system, trying to find a doctor who will actually see their asthmatic child? Will they spend years fighting the Attorney General's office for child support, waiting a year just to get to court? Will they ever try to pay for their generic can of beans with WIC coupons and be treated like a leper? Have someone roll their eyes as they buy food with food stamps after they just got off an eight-hour shift standing on thier feet, cutting nasty hair?

Have you ever heard your child scream for you as you left for work--the seventh day in a row? Have you ever had someone look at you like you were a piece of shit simply because you had a child as a teenager, stuck around, raised them alone--not because of your religion, not because of your stance as a Dem or a Republican, not because of your education, not because of your beliefs about abortion, not because of anything the media or a pastor or a rabbi or your parents or your teachers or your friends or your baby's father told you to do, not because of what they think the right "choice" is.

I did not have my kids because of any of these reasons. I had them because they were wanted, and they are loved. They are well taken care of.

I have never been in public housing. I have never gotten cash money from taxpayers, except for $400 six years ago, which was immediately taken out of my next paycheck. I am not a heroine for the anti-abortion people, even though I never had an abortion. I am grateful for the small amount of food stamps that come and go, the kid's Medicaid that is almost--but not quite--worthless. I have worked on my feet for nine years and never once made a living wage. At times, I have paid 50% of my income for childcare. I was born in this country. So were my kids. Don't tell me, after all this, after all these years of being told I'm an irresponsible, selfish "Welfare Queen," after all the paperwork, all the tears, all the humiliation, all the glares, all the hours spent away from my kids, on my feet, all the hours on the phone begging for child support, that now a single unwed mother at long last is an honorable thing--as long as you're a politician's daughter.

I wonder if Bristol chose not to marry her baby's father, or if he dumps her in a couple of years, if she has to apply for food stamps--What would these same people say?

If she was just some obscure gal from a small town who got pregnant, she wouldn't be a poster child for the "pro-life" crowd, or the "cautionary tale" for the "pro-choice" crowd. She would just be me--or one of the million other single mothers in this great country who feel alone, unsupported, ashamed, scared, and most of all, poor.

No, I don't want a hand out just 'cause I chose to have kids as a teen, but you know what? Some steady child support, a living wage, affordable healthcare, childcare, rent that did not cost a month's pay, and a gallon of gas or milk that did not cost an hour's pay would be nice.

So you wanna applaud gals who choose life?

Help them.

Don't be a hypocrite like both the political parties--CLINTON AND BUSH--who slashed support for us moms while praising our choice to carry a baby to term. Don't pressure us to marry men who are unsupportive, abusive, or just plain assholes, just because some moron told you kids MUST have TWO parents (A man and a woman, of course), no matter what. Don't judge us, because you know what? We have enough stress without everyone thinking bad thoughts about us. And yes, every one makes mistakes. You know you have, come on. But you know what? My kids are not MISTAKES. They are a blessing. My conservative parents have always stood by me and never once said "I told you so." They never said I made a mistake, they only loved me and my kids, and never made it seem like they were doing us some big favor. Without their support and the support of the rest of my family and friends, life would be a hell of a lot harder, maybe impossible, with this economy, and the gutted social service programs.

In the next few weeks, as this election draws to a close, whenever the Teen/single mother issue gets brought up, just remember, what I cannot forget, that for decades--maybe forever--these experts, these politicians, these media assholes, have trashed women and girls like me. They can't just change their minds now that it's one of their kids.

We are not just Jamie Spears. We are not just Bristol Palin. And we need help...NOW. Vote...wisely,please.

Sincerely,
Amy Pace

Girls like me have raised presidents. We've raised messiahs and musicians, writers and settlers. Girls like me won't compromise, and we won't fail.
--Alli Crews, August 26, 1982 - June 11, 2005

& Plant Some Spinach

2008-09-30T08:13:00.001-07:00

"I hope we don't lose the house," Fabulosa says.

We're watching the news about the bailout going down in flames.

"I know," I say. "I hope Maia can finish college before the apocalypse."

Yes, the glorious end of American capitalism as we know it will be rather inconvenient for all of us.

But we've planted some collards and some hot peppers, and the beets are starting to shoulder up.

Go Kucinich

2008-09-30T07:31:00.001-07:00

Maia & Max

2008-09-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

Just back from L.A. & other lucky adventures -- got Maia settled (or something like it) in her new digs. Went to the mountains & saw some pretty big fish swimming upstream.

Here's a picture of the kids from earlier in the summer...

from Deepak Chopra...

2008-09-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

Obama and the Palin Effect

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and turning negativity into a cause for pride. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision

Look at what she stands for:

Small town values — a nostaligic return to simpler times disguises a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be needed.
Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
"Reform" — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.
Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness

Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

One More Nut for Obama

2008-09-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hey - look at Maria's "One More Nut for Obama" T-shirts for babies & grown-ups!

congratulations, bristol palin

2008-09-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

This story just gets curiouser and curiouser.

But it sounds like congratulations are in order for Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, who, according to the McCain campaign, is now pregnant--and will keep the baby.

Bristol, I hope your boyfriend is a cool dude and not someone you have to marry.

In either case, congratulations on the bun in the oven.

It's great to have babies when you're young enough to stay up all night and still be able to pay attention to your college lectures in the morning.

I'm sorry you've become a political pawn and all, but surely you understand that it is just so very satisfying to watch the Republican "family values" fools--the ones who've dissed teen moms for so many years--finally have their judgments come back and bite them in the ass.

Unwed teenage mama power!

Obama's mama was only 18!

(And only marry the BF if you really want to, OK?)

just asking

2008-08-30T20:53:00.000-07:00

Snake dreams aside, it is beyond embarrassing that contemporary mainstream journalists are still asking female political candidates "Who will take care of the children?!"

The fact that Sarah Palin has kids--including an infant with special needs--is hardly what makes her ill-prepared for the presidency. I mean, shit, it's the only thing on her resume that's reassuring!

And yet, as many times as I've heard that she's McCain's "maverick" pick, I've heard some weird version of... Who will take care of the children during the campaign... and beyond?

Maybe she's got a husband, yo. Maybe she's got a manny like I do.

Maybe her kids can take care of their damn selves.

They're spaced as far apart as my own kids--and there are way more of 'em. I'm sure little Bristol or Willow can take care of Trig while mama's on the campaign trail. Don't worry about it, OK? Arrangements have been made.

I mean, was everyone stoned during the most recent women's movement?

And stoned while the majority of women in this country made childcare plans no thanks to you?

If you are not offering to babysit, don't ask me about my childcare plans.

a heartbeat away

2008-08-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

Weirdly enough, I dreamed that John McCain selected a gardener snake as his running mate, and he kept it in a little blue ceramic pot. The Republican machine and journalists on CNN were madly searching through the old rule books to find a statute that required the VP be human. By the time the baby woke me, they had found no such rule.

the creative

2008-08-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

I got an email this morning from a woman who says she wants to build a creative life; to build creativity into her life. Can I help her?

I like the question. It seems so basic. Something that should be simple. Like, I want to learn to feed myself.

Should be simple. But it never is.

Why?

I spend the rest of the morning asking around.

I start with my girlfriend, who was a traveling musician when we met but soon gave it up to build her other career as an acupuncturist. "One has to make money," she explains now. "When I was really prioritizing my creativity, I wasn't making money and I didn't care about that. But now I have responsibilities, a family, dogs to walk. So it's time and money."

Time and money.

But my artist friends who have trust funds don't always fare much differently than my work-a-day friends. "Having money doesn't help," one writer tells me. "Because then you don't have that fire under your ass. When I first got access to my money, I figured I'd just take a year off to relax. But it's been a lot longer than a year. I can't get motivated. And, you know, on some level, why should I?"

I know creative women who have married bread-winning men in part because they believed they'd be able to focus on their art with that "security." But the drama of dependence can take a toll. And the undertow of tradition can easily suck us in. Maybe we have kids. And pretty soon our creative energy is focused on Play Dough crafts we don't really get lost in.

Why is it so difficult to build a creative life? To build creativity into our lives?

One of my writing students says it's hard because "I wonder, am I ever going to get paid for this? Is anyone out there? Will people get what I say?"

So it's money. But it's also the fear of not being heard, of being misunderstood. "Getting paid" is about more than making money--it's about knowing that what we do is valued by the community. That there is some place for us in this world.

The worst thing for an artist is to be ignored, the performing writer Erika Lopez once told me. But is being ignored worse than not creating anything for people to ignore?

Maybe.

Fear of failure.

Fear of success.

"The creative life is difficult to build because at almost every turn we are challenged by the patriarchy," my writer friend Moe Bowstern tells me. "We have in our society places for business people, for numbers people, for healers, for teachers, administrators, tradespeople. But the creative person must frequently invent a place for herself. In my experience this has meant doing my own creative work at a financial loss and finding other ways to make money. For others around me I see that they turn to teaching or working with children, as this is a place where our society feels good about funding creation."

All these difficulties ring true. Time seems such a finite and fluttering thing these days. I have kids to feed, tuitions to pay. Sometimes I get paid for creative work. Ah, this is really the ticket, I think. But then comes the devil: The temptation to write for the market.

Then again, writing things that people will read isn't always about selling out--it's about the part of creativity that seeks community. Writing not just because "I am an ARTISTE" but because I choose to be in conversation with other people seeking to build creative lives, other people seeking to be honest with themselves. To write for people, then, not for markets.

Moe says: "People around the artist may not understand that art that is unmade, or art that is distorted to fit into a box that can be sold or traded, that this art sows the seeds of madness and poor mental health. This may take the form of depression, denial, alcoholism, mania, obsessive behavior or any number of things that we can now take a pill to mediate. Our society, sadly, would rather drug us than allow us to make our art. I believe that artists and creative persons can save the world from the deathmongers, if we can just keep making our art and using it to awaken people and join them together. Encouraging people therefore to follow a creative path is highly subversive behavior. So, yeah. We have to swim upstream." That's what Moe says.

What do you think?

New online class starts in September!

2008-08-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

September 8 - November 2 - CLASS FULL!
(8 Weeks)
LIT STAR TRAINING - MEMOIR, BIOMYTHOGRAPHY, AND STORIES LOOSELY BASED ON THE TRUTH
Taught by Ariel Gore
This fall, we'll focus on memoir writing, biomythography, and fashioning powerful fiction stories from real-life experiences. Over the course of this class, you'll make time to write, produce new material with weekly deadlines, and improve your craft with practice and critique. You won't even have time to worry about creative blocks. Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone coaching. Class size is limited.

$275
($85 deposit saves your spot)