writing – Pulp & Pep

Bookstore Chronicles: The Power of Positive Thinking

Monica — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 23:44:29 +0000

I had a busy day at the bookstore Tuesday. There was a box from triliteral to unpack (I want all the books in the semiotexte series — so small, so simply designed, with such apocalyptic titles) and I was entering the books in the system while customers kept interrupting me — which is good! No complaints. We like it when people buy books.

A man in town for a convention asked if we had any books on dachshunds. No, I said, after conscientiously doing a keyword check, was he a dachshund fan? he wasn’t, his wife was. But stronger than a fan she was…”obsessed?” I suggested. He bought a psychedelic … Read more

The Queen of Pep

Monica — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 07:20:48 +0000

Once upon a time I was attempting to summarize my books for a friend of my brother’s while my niece and the friend’s two kids ran around my brother’s living room wreaking havoc.

In the midst of my long-winded dissertation on lesbian pulp fiction, its historical context, my attempts to reimagine it, etc, my brother looked up from his iPhone and interrupted.

“Actually, they’re like these Beany Malone books we read when we were kids.”

Busted!

Of course my brother would be the one to out me. As a former member of the Beany Malone fan club (one meeting, one newsletter, six members all bearing the same last name) he … Read more

Sisters United

Monica — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:52:34 +0000

I went to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. Mostly just to check it out–I’ve been curious about it forever, or at least since I saw Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman which used it as a setting.

However, I had a project or two to focus my visit: mid-sixties period research with a lesbian slant; and finding out what I could about an obscure periodical, Sisters United, published in Kansas in the early eighties.

A little background. In our home library there is a book called The Love of Two Women, by one Jean Vivian. It was published by Womanbooks of Galena, Kansas in 1980. … Read more

Fountain Pens

Monica — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 08:48:45 +0000

I write with a fountain pen. An Esterbrook plunger model. Not just because it’s eco, or because Patricia Highsmith favored Esterbrooks, or because I’m a luddite contrarian, although all these things are true. I use it because it feels good in my hand and the ink goes from dark to peacock blue as it dries and because every time I have to refill it–lift it off the page, dip it in the ink bottle, pull the plunger down, release the plunger, lift it out, tap it on the bottle lip–my head fills up with the next bunch of words I’m going to write and so I always feel like … Read more