Time Out Chicago; Books Article; O Street

Time Out Chicago / Issue 107: March 15–21, 2007

Chicks and balances

A debut author upends chick lit with an unflinching look at poverty.

By Gretchen Kalwinski


If there existed a polar opposite to chick lit, Corrina Wycoff’s O Street (OV Books, $17.95) would exemplify the genre. The debut author isn’t interested in romanticizing love, motherhood, hardship—or anything at all, come to think of it.

O Street collects ten short stories about Beth Dinard, who spends her Newark childhood caring for her mentally ill, homeless, junkie single mother. “Visiting Mrs. Ferullo” shows Beth following a neighbor home, longing for the home-cooking aromas that waft from the woman’s apartment. In “The Wrong Place in the World,” adult Beth is in Chicago trying to stabilize her life even while her brutal memories affect her relationships and attitudes about class and work. When she gets a phone call informing her of her mother’s death, it triggers a relapse into old, destructive patterns. It’s tempting to read the tightly linked stories as a novel, but Wycoff stresses the importance of the form.

“In a linked-story format, I can present other points of view as short pieces of contrast,” she says. “I wanted to structure the book so that it begins and ends with a death, because I wanted it to read as a cycle. Linearity, to me, seems more of a construct than cycles.”

A single mother herself, Wycoff says the stories should not be confused with autobiography.

“They are based on a political truth: Single mothers fall through the cracks in this country, and the cracks grow in proportion to these women’s economic challenges, making inaccessible the so-called American Dream,” she says. “When my son was born, I’d not yet gone to college, and money was extremely tight. I drew on that experience…but by the time I wrote about it, [I] had changed enough that it didn’t resemble my ‘real’ life at all.”

In one scene, a depressed Beth wishes that she could “grow into someone new—someone who could easily have had two parents, good breeding, hearty suppers and piano lessons.” Passages like these strike unexpected chords. Though many contemporary narratives deal with women’s physical and spiritual transformations, few do so at the poverty level. This is, of course, no grand coincidence: Poor women face even more barriers than their male counterparts in getting their stories told.

“The second of these I wrote when my son was two years old,” says Wycoff. “I wrote it, in part, in reaction to all of the sentimental, dreamy writing about motherhood. ”

In Chicago, Wycoff met UIC’s Cris Mazza, an award-winning author who has waged a one-woman war against the chick-lit genre. Since then, Mazza has become both her creative muse and mentor.

“Twelve years ago, I read How to Leave a Country, and decided I needed to read everything she’d ever written,” Wycoff says. “She was the reason I chose to go to college and, later, graduate school at UIC, and she helped me see that the disparate single-mother stories I’d written could be linked.”

Because of the book’s gravitas (the title story is especially harrowing), getting O Street published wasn’t easy.

“I got about seven rejections over the course of four years, all from small presses,” she says, “many of whom called the collection ‘too dark.’”

Indeed, Wycoff portrays the gritty, sorrowful elements of her characters’ lives head-on and offers no easy solutions—no one’s riding up on a white horse, but neither are the stories bleak. Instead, drama and tension are delivered in such a subtle but detail-infused way that the reader becomes invested in Beth’s plight early on in the collection. The collection will likely elicit Dorothy Allison comparisons for its depictions of poor women and lesbian relationships, .

Wycoff is working on a novel now, and is planning another about teaching at a community college.

With chick lit down, it looks like the vaunted “university novel” may next.

Wycoff reads this week.

Venus Zine, Profile of Julie Shapiro

Venus Zine / Fall 2006

Listen up!


Audio artist Julie Shapiro shares her thoughts on the current radio renaissance and shows how you can get in on the action

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

As managing director for Chicago’s Third Coast International Audio Festival, an annual and on-going celebration of documentary and feature audio works, Julie Shapiro is an expert on fascinating radio segments, but her girlhood listening was uber-ordinary; "Typical for a white Midwestern Jewish girl,” she laughs. “Billy Joel, Neil Diamond, Peter, Paul, and Mary." Shapiro began working with TCIAF in 2000. There, with executive director Johanna Zorn, she chooses radio documentaries for their competition, hosts "Listening Room" events, and travels to worldwide radio conferences, which has been life-changing: “It’s opened my ears and mind to audio work from all over the world, and stretched my mind about the power of sound.”

Shapiro did a college radio show at Transylvania University, where she played typical indie stuff of its time; Husker Du, Uncle Tupelo, The Slits. During the 90’s, she lived in Boulder, Colorado, Portland, Oregon, and Durham, North Carolina, where she worked in a record store and public radio station and played drums, which helped her become “more receptive to sound” and led to her appreciation for experimental artists like John Cage and Meredith Monk. "I got into composition and very beautiful spacey sounds."

An audio artist herself, Shapiro produced a tribute to model-horse collectors titled, “Are There Any More Rare, Plastic Ponies?,” which was picked up by TCIAF’s Re:sound. (thirdcoastfestival.org/resound_2005_june.asp). She also runs an audio-blog called notetheslantoftheovals.blogspot.com, and, apart from TCIAF, hosts Lissenup!, a listening event that began as a potluck, where she plays beloved audio pieces including one by Benjamen Walker (about a Darth Vader impersonator) and another in which Brooklyn student Natalie Edwards does a tongue-in-cheek investigation of prostitution. She’s currently considering new Lissenup! venues and the use of blindfolds to engage the senses.

Shapiro claims that we’re in a radio renaissance, evidenced by the number of younger people, journalists, and filmmakers exploring the field. “Radio's being recognized as an art form as well as a source for news and information, like in the pre-TV days. And, being surrounded by radio stories at TCIAF, I'm constantly learning--whether about blood feuds in Albania or one guy's encounter with a blind dog in Wyoming. Being able to help bring these stories to many more ears has been such a privilege. And a blast.”

Julie’s Advice on Producing Audio Segments

--Equipment
There's tons of used equipment online. The basics are: a microphone, recorder, and editing software, such as Audacity. (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/).

--Choosing a Story
Listen to many different styles of radio, and learn to be critical. (See transom.org, prx.org, and radiocollege.org.) Be careful with personal stories - they're often not that interesting to others. Make sure your story's really a contender for audio, and isn't just a spoken print piece. Think about stories that will surprise people or show them something new about the world.

-- Interviewing
Ask simple, straightforward questions. Watch for sounds that may disrupt conversations, like barking dogs, or humming refrigerators. It's ok to ask someone to repeat something or to stop wriggling in a squeaky chair. Always gather more tape than you think you'll need, and keep recording as long as possible. (Very often the best tape materializes after the "real" interview ends.)

--Putting Words Together with Music/Background Sound
Use the medium to its fullest! Sounds can play as important a role in telling your story as the narrative, [because] they're crucial to setting scenes. Music can add a lot to a listening experience but can also be a huge liability; don’t use the same songs you've heard in dozens of other radio stories. (No more Yo La Tengo!) In general the old adage "less is more" applies.

-- Editing
Writing is very different for radio than for print. Write like you talk - keep sentences simple and use words you usually use when you speak. Cut out every bit of tape you don't absolutely love. Then cut some more. If you're using narration keep it minimal and let the subjects of your story speak for themselves and move the story along. But don't leave out crucial information that'll help a listener understand the full context the story takes place in. Try to show, not tell. This is easy to do in radio, because you can actually include a clip of, say, a dog barking.

--Where to Send Your Finished Audio Segment
My advice to someone who wanted to get a serious start in radio would be to get an internship somewhere, not to start making stories cold and sending them around. That said, it's much better to contact any show or station you're hoping to work with BEFORE you produce anything, to find out what sort of work they're seeking; (most stations and shows' websites have contact info for this). Besides getting work onto airwaves, you can make a podcast and, or post it at prx.org, (a web-based marketplace for public radio pieces), where it can be reviewed by peers, and possibly picked up by a radio station. You can also just invite a bunch of friends over for a potluck, open a couple bottles of wine and beer, and have a listening party. ----GK

Centerstagechicago.com; Interview; Bookslut

Centerstage Chicago

Bookslut (Interview)
Monday May 22, 2006
By: Gretchen Kalwinski

Jessa Crispin is a literary lass extraordinaire, and her Bookslut readings are icing on the cake.

Basic stats: Features three or four fiction or non-fiction authors, in conjunction with the smart, irreverent tone of Bookslut.com
Incorporated: 2003
Website: http://www.bookslut.com
When: Once a month (exact dates and locations vary)
Fringe benefits: Free!
Up next: May 24, 2006 at Hopleaf: Michelle Tea, Elizabeth Merrick, Gary Amdahl.

Jessa Crispin is a literary lass extraordinaire. She is the editor and founder of Bookslut.com, a "monthly webzine dedicated to those who love to read" that's known for offering sharp, thoughtful and acerbic reviews of fiction and non-fiction, author interviews, commentary on publishing trends and literary news. It also contains the Bookslut blog, and Crispin's authoritative tone and occasionally-biting commentary have made for her reputation as a successful and devoted literary blogger (the Bookslut site boasts 7,000-8,000 daily readers).

Crispin began the Bookslut website while living in Austin, Texas, where Bookslut.com began to gain momentum. Crispin also runs the monthly Bookslut Reading Series, which has featured such authors as Marisha Pessl, Luis Alberto Urrea and Kirby Gann, and usually features readers who have already been reviewed by Bookslut.com. Last year, Crispin made Wired's list of the "10 Sexiest Geeks," and in 2003, Bookslut.com was awarded as one of Time Magazine's "50 Best Websites." Centerstage chatted with Crispin about the origins of Bookslut.com and how the Bookslut Reading Series ties in with the website.

What's the most memorable Bookslut reading thus far?
Our first reading was with Shalom Auslander, who wrote Beware of God, and since it was the first one I had no expectations, but she completely rocked it; she's just a very good performer. I didn't know how that night was going to work out actually; because we had Beth Lisick, a feminist writer named Paula Kamen who wrote All in My Head and a scholar named Peter Manseau who wrote Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son. Lisick was the first reader and she opened with a story about um, fisting. Peter was hilarious about it when it was his turn though. He got up there and was like, “how do I insert fisting into this?” I was worried, but it turned out fine.

What did you set out to do with the Bookslut website?
I just kinda started it to kill some time at my day job; I never would have imagined that it would have become what it has.

How does the site inform your choices for the reading series?
The readers kind of depend on who the publishers will send. It's gotten a little better now, but when we were starting and trying to get writers it was like pulling teeth.

Does this mean that by you use more authors at big publishing houses rather than smaller ones, because the bigger ones can cover traveling expenses?
Not really, with some of the writers we've taken up collections and helped pay travel costs that way. We actually get a lot of small press writers and it seems that bigger publishers are LESS likely to cover travel expenses. Also, we've had a longtime relationship working with small houses, as opposed to bigger ones who are like “who the hell are you, again?”

What book are you reading now?
Pearl by Mary Gordon, who we are trying to get for July. It's a novel about an American girl who chains herself to a flagpole in Dublin on a hunger strike but no one can figure out what she's protesting.

I heard that your parents are kind of reserved and don't say the name of the site out loud.
Right, they just call it “the site”. After we made Time Magazine's list of best websites, my father was at their church and they have this part of the service where you pray for people, and offer “concerns and congratulations.” My dad started to say, “Oh, my daughter got this award” and then he was like, “Oh wait,” and tried to work around the name of the site, but by then people were already starting to ask him all kinds of questions.

Who are some upcoming readers that you're excited about?
May's reading with Michelle Tea and Elizabeth Merrick will be great, and the June reading will be a good nepotism month because the readers have all written for Bookslut.

Venus Zine; Author Interview; Elizabeth Merrick

Interview with Elizabeth Merrick, novelist, for Venus Zine, January 2006.

Elizabeth Merrick
Novelist Elizabeth Merrick chats with Venus about her new novel, Girly, starting her own press, and remedial math

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

Brooklyn-based Elizabeth Merrick is a writer, editor, writing teacher, creativity consultant, independent publisher, blogger, feminist, and founder of two reading series. Her personality is representative of New York City’s energetic power and creativity, and though she purports to be “deeply lazy,” it’s hard to buy the claim. Here’s an extended laundry list of her accomplishments—after receiving a BA from Yale, an MFA from Cornell, and an MA in Creativity and Art Education from San Francisco State, she founded and began curating the well-known and women-focused Cupcake Reading Series, followed by the launch of the Grace Reading Series in September 2005. She is the editor of the upcoming Random House anthology called This is Not Chick Lit, a collection of new short fiction by literary women authors, (read: authors NOT writing with a fashion-mag mentality). She has taught classes at Cornell and NYU and began her own writing school several years ago, where she teaches students in the Brooklyn area how to tap into their intuitive and creative powers, along with conveying her extensive knowledge of technique and craft. The cherry on top is that she just started a small press called Demimonde Books, with its initial release being her first novel, Girly—a 524-page tome that was published in December 2005.

Girly takes place mainly in rural Pennsylvania, and depicts the unfolding of events in several women’s lives, most primarily the lives of the Hart family women, made up of Racinda Hart, her psychologically damaged sister Ruth, and out-of-it mother Amandine, who became a born again Christian when Racinda was a baby. The themes of Christian fundamentalism, and spiritual and sexual awakening pervade the novel, which was called “smart, sharp, and on the edge” by Hannah Tinti, the editor of the brilliantly unpretentious One Story Magazine. When I talked with Merrick, she was relieved to finally have a few days off, after a year of 12-hour work-days spent getting Demimonde Books up and running.

In Girly, there are 7 different points of view with women’s voices being the dominant ones. Was it your intention to use so many points of view from the get-go, or did that just gradually evolve during the writing process?
It was definitely my intention. Part of writing it was that I was very much interested in NOT writing a typical first novel or just write a novel to write one. I wanted to write something that resembled the books that blew me away. One of those authors for me is Louise Erdrich, who is Faulkner-ian; I actually think that she takes Faulkner to the next level. She is commanding and I loved the sense of a community telling a story—this community of characters. I loved finding things from one character that the other characters don’t know about. That to me was the most interesting part, interesting part of the endeavor of writing a novel. I really loved that part of it.

You said you wrote Girly because you were looking for a book on the shelves that you wanted to read, and couldn't find it, so you decided to write one. So I wanted to find out what you think Girly offers that other books might not?
In the late 90’s, publishers were putting out a lot of amazing fiction which isn’t as true now—it’s gotten a lot more corporate. But the book that I wanted to read was one of these epic books (that are mainly written by guys) that are formally ambitious and long, like David Foster Wallace for instance. I wanted to see a version of those books by a woman of my generation, and one that took into account Toni Morrison and Louise Erdrich; our epic women writers who are amazing and who have carried literature a step further into the 20thth century. I couldn’t find that book, so I tried to write it and am not sure if I got there, but I tried and it’s a decent effort and people seem to like it well enough. I think Girly is challenging in certain ways—the language is dense, for instance. I tried to make it beautiful but hope that the story still grips you. A lot of times there is not a category of books like that by women. There are women writers who are in their 40s or 50s who have been writing dense epic books forever, and they aren’t nearly as well known as they would be if they were men. Joanna Scott is one who comes to mind—she is amazing but yet a lot of writers and a lot of people in publishing aren’t aware of her work. Although, some young guy writers are often aware of her work. I think David Foster Wallace has said that she is one of our best living writers. And the same thing happened with Paula Fox; she is in her 80s now, but she only got back into print because Jonathan Franzen introduced a book and made a big fuss over her. So there are these women producing serious literature but who fall through the cracks; with women artists, that’s the way it is, you know. That’s what the Guerilla Girls are making such a big noise about, and you spend decades of your life battling this stuff to whatever degree you can.

So, you’ve got a big presence on the Web—I especially enjoy the “Remedial Math” section of the Grace Reading Series Web site, where it talks about the fact that the New Yorker bylines are 79% male, versus 21% female and it lists different statistics of male versus female bylines. You’ve also stated that part of the problem is that literary men simply don’t enjoy reading literature by women, and I just thought that was fascinating. Can you talk more about that? I haven’t done a study myself on that but there was an informal poll, I think in the UK Guardian, where they asked men what books they had recently read and the guys came up with books by men, you know, basically the men had read books only by men whereas women had read books by men and women. I’m okay with this. I think that if men don’t want to read books by women that’s okay with me, they’re grown-ups, it’s fine; it is not my job to be telling anyone what kind of taste they should have. I am in no way interested in that. What I am interested in is equal pay for equal work. And that is why it always comes down to those numbers. And that 21% at the New Yorker is a very strange status quo because it is representative—it really does tend to be only about 20% women across the board. And it’s fascinating that it is so consistent! Even with the young upstart literary magazines that are certainly not making a lot of money and are very much not part of mainstream pop culture, it's still only about 20% women. And I can tell you right now that people paying for MFA’s are more than 20% women. And English majors certainly make up more than 20% women. There’s a weird disconnect that happens when we get to the job, and the paycheck and the authority of the byline.

I think all those figures you just mentioned point to how difficult it is financially to be a woman writer, because, like you said, many women are paying for writing degrees and not getting any work—how do you work rent into that equation?
Yeah I started looking at the bylines in graduate school and counting them because I was thinking; “Wait a minute, what’s the plan?” It’s not like it was some political cause. It was very practical—it’s like I need to pay rent when I leave graduate school and was thinking, “This is not a very good plan!” You see it’s just thematically so predictable, and then you start to realize that it’s bigger than just you…I know tons of freelancers—brilliant women—paying rent by writing for Cosmo Girl or Elle Girl when they want to be writing for Harper’s and they should be writing for Harper’s, and Harper’s would be a hell of a lot more interesting if these women were in it. But for whatever reason that didn’t happen. I think that Harper’s is especially insidious on the issue of women’s bylines. I have a friend that told me that the gender ratio of men to women over at Harper’s is like a Star Trek convention. [Laughs].

This might be a whole separate conversation, but do you think that literary men are perhaps less interested in reading literature by women because women tend to tell the stories of their lives a bit more—not even necessarily autobiography—but stories adjacent to the lives they’ve lived?
It’s possible, but the thing is, of course women should be telling those stories! It’s been only 35 years since the 2nd wave of feminism. Women didn’t get to go to Yale until 1969. So it has really only been this one generation and yet, the rightness of the idea of men and women being equal and being equal partners in relationships etc, etc. is so true and so right that [society] has adjusted to that very quickly because things simply work better. But the changes are so huge that it's a lot for people to deal with, I think men especially. So, because it’s only been 35 years, of course we need to tell all these stories, because they are so important and fascinating, but these stories are not valued yet. No one cares what happens to a 12-year-old girl, really. And that is very sad, but very true if you look at the policies in our country, especially where children are concerned, and you look at the gender inequalities that still exist. It’s a blind spot that we have. And what are valued are male stories—it’s just still kind of true. And guys naturally want to write their own experience and read their own experiences, and—lucky them!!—their experiences are more valued! And win awards! And are granted authority. And it’s interesting because we just got the news today that the James Frey book is largely fabricated. In his book there is vomiting and serious drug use and crazy arrests, and that book was considered serious literature. And it was so funny to me when Girly came out, because as a teacher, I think I give my students optimism and belief and trust in their intuition, all that kind of stuff. I’m a bit airy-fairy and part of Girly was narrated by a goddess and the book has this very strong spiritual belief. So it was really funny to me, this kind of literary Pollyanna in my everyday life that the reviews of Girly say things like “it’s so dark with massive drug use and filthy sex.” And there is not actually that much of that stuff in there! I mean there is some drug use but people mostly smoke pot, and it was very funny to me that because I’m a woman the reviews read that way and people are sort of shocked and reviewing it like, “it is so dark and bleak and nihilistic.” Whereas for a guy, reviews for that kind of book with dark themes read like, “he’s the next inheritor of literature after Dave Eggers.” So I got a big giggle out of that because my regular life is so herbal tea and optimistic, and then I got to be like this deep, dark, hot Sylvia Plath lady with those reviews.

Your book is being published by Demimonde Books, a press that you started up, and the stated mission is “to focus on risk-taking literary prose of exquisite quality.” I was wondering how you decided to start your own press, and if you have a staff or it’s a one-woman show at this point?
Oh my gosh, what an adventure! I just had my first week of slight downtime in a year because Demimonde Books has been taking 12 hours a day, which is not my natural bent; I am actually deeply, deeply lazy. I recently took a little personality quiz, one of those Myers-Briggs things and found that I am the personality type that is introverted and really spaced out and idealistic and on another planet, the kind of person that can’t find their keys. So I was laughing so much because starting a press is all about all those kinds of details, the business end of things and organization. And I have the reading series and my workshops and have way more going on than one person who was practical about how much person could actually do at one time. But I really wanted to do it all, so I just did it, and people really showed up to help. I have people helping out with publicity, and Emberly Nesbitt, who is an editor of the Grace Reading Series, is also an editor at Demimonde and we’re looking at manuscripts now, which is a really fun generative phase as opposed to production, which is getting everything out and at the right time and the right phase. I also have some administrative help at the press and there is a lot of crossover with the Grace Reading Series. With my workshops, too, it can be hard with the phase we’re in to find a space that celebrates gorgeous writing but that doesn’t have literary one up-man-ship which I cannot stand. I am not interested in a “literary lifestyle”. I am interested in the writing, which to me is something that is really earthy and connected to all the old stories and it has to be funny and has to be a place where there isn’t ego, and those are kind of ugly and uncomfortable places sometimes, but can also be fun and delightful places. All of that is really different from a publishing cocktail party, which can be fun, but is not where I live and thrive.

You have three more books coming out on Demimonde in 2006, right?
Yes, we’re going to publish three books, but it might carry over into 2007. Something that I’ve learned about publishing is that it’s always better to wait until you have all the pieces, so it’s looking more like late 2006, early 2007. Plus, I found this really amazing literary cookbook, actually sort of a dirty literary cookbook, by someone who lives in Park Slope and works in publishing. It is these sexy recipes with a literary bent, but we’ll see what happens.

Since your book is the first published by Demimonde and since it runs approximately 500 pages, I was wondering what the editing process was like?
It's been edited by a few different people, one of them was Emberly, the editor at Demimonde. People were really generous with their time in editing it; I was really grateful. And actually, the director's cut is 700 pages. But this 500-page version I'm pretty happy with. So, the Grace Reading Series has been going on since September 2005, is named after your grandmother, and has featured Beth Lisick and Jill Solloway among others.

What is unique about the reading series other than the fact that it is women-centric?
Well, the series is only once a month with one or two writers, so that there is a clear vision of trying to focus on literary books by women that are crafted with care and thought, and that are substantive. It is a way to focus attention on them because they don’t get it in bookstores, and they don’t get it in book reviews, (we have statistics on this on the Grace Web site—most of the review space goes to male writers). And a lot of attention goes to commercial women writers and “fashionista lit.” So, it’s an activist wing in many ways, without being dreary, like a fun activist wing. Also, we just started a book club where we do review recommendations of 3 books a month. We started doing that because I was finding that everyone—from my friend who is a comp lit major at Yale and conceptual artist, to my very cool hairdresser, to friends in academic publishing— were telling me that they’ve given up on contemporary fiction because, “every thing I happen upon is crap.” This has to do with publishers being so big and corporate and kind of out of touch with the community of serious readers and just trying to sell the latest Paris Hilton book or whatever. This seemed like a shame to me, because there are still wonderful books being published, but there is a disconnect there. So Grace is a way for people to find out what those books are and how to get them so that they can start reading again. It was my little way to do that.

You have a writing school that is run out of your living room?
The writing school just turned 2 years old. It’s grown a little bit, so now I just have the advanced classes at my home, and the rest are taught at a location in Park Slope and SoHo sometimes, too.

What is the demographic of those classes?
It’s funny—it’s mostly women. For awhile I wondered if that was because of all of my other endeavors, but I think it also has to do with what I specifically offer to students. The big thing I give to people as a teacher (underneath all the craft and everything else), is how to quell through the terror and doubt of “Why do I have any right to say this at all? Why would anyone ever be interested?” Women feel that and it’s paralyzing! And part of the reason is that stories about 12-year-old girls DON’T win Booker prizes.

Right; their fears are justified!
...And they DON’T see those bylines in the New Yorker. And maybe they’re not thinking about that consciously but that is what they’re battling with. And so all those years that I battled with that in Girly, to get to the point where I was comfortable with my own authority as a writer, I learned things that I am able to help my students with. And it’s so rewarding to see it work and it’s amazing to see women start to progress and trust themselves as writers. Everything is kind of condensed down to this foundation class that I require students to take first. When I started teaching these workshops that is what I came up with, and it is a progression that takes you through both getting to your creativity and opening up that intuition. Then very quickly in the 3rd or 4th week I move into all of the craft stuff and progression on a curriculum, which is pretty much wholly missing from workshops in academia! Really, no one gives you this stuff! Emberly and I laugh all the time, because all of the years in workshops, no one ever told you how to do that stuff; you had to figure it out on your own. You’d go to workshops and people would critique this or that but then you never knew, “OK, how do I then go home and do that?” So, there was no way I was going to teach an insipid, ineffectual writing workshop; it had to be really essential information that was going to work. So I boiled it down and it works—people become productive writers who know how to write stories that people want to read and are able to craft a beautiful sentence. It’s almost to the point where I’m present, but the process carries the students along almost on their own, once they get this information.

Seeing your students’ progress must be ridiculously rewarding for you.
Oh, my god! My crew right now is really working hard, and they recently had a reading at Lolita Bar where they each read for 5 minutes and all of their friends came, and I was so blown away that I could not speak. And they are so much better than most of these review copies I get—everyone was electrified, and I was like a dorky mom cheering at a game or something.

How long have you been writing—did you write as a kid?
Well, I think writing was always my natural strength. But, because it was something that came easily and got me things like good grades in English, I didn’t trust it. I kinda wanted to be a punk rock bassist and then I was a film major. But then I figured out that you had to be really extroverted for those things, and deal with all of these physical irritations like lighting and microphones. So, after trying a bunch of different things, it became clear to me that I wasn’t just writing because of praise or whatever, and I could do what I wanted, and be as expansive as I wanted and not have to lug around a camera and mic all the time.

Speaking of music, I know you like Sleater-Kinney, Bjork, and PJ Harvey; do you listen to music while you’re writing?
In the early phases, yes. I’ll drive and drive and drive and the stories will show up. And then at a certain point, the music will start jangling and I’ll hear the characters speaking, and I’ll have to turn the music off. What the music does is get me into my right brain—all of the intuition stuff—and then once I can access that and the story is there, I turn it off. The music for me is the way to feel unconstricted .

Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?
I'm glad we got to talk about the women writers who have gone before, because for me, that is where the sanity is. Even Demimonde is linked to that—it's all part of a larger picture. Also, I wanted to mention that I think magazines like Venus are so important because that is a place for curious women writers, especially young women writers to write about and hear about a broader range of topic beyond “how to take a bath” or whatever the features are in the women’s magazines. I just think that it is so important to have these spaces because that is where women really get to express different ideas and ways of life. I’m so grateful for what you guys are doing, because a lot of women have no stuff that is in magazines like Venus or Bust. I taught a class at Cornell titled “Women’s Secret Stories” and one woman in the class was from Louisiana and had always been anti-choice and I started bringing in magazine articles for the class about women, like Margaret Cho for example, and her world was turned upside down.

Right, and once you plug these women into stuff that they don’t hear about in the mainstream, give them those tools, you’re helping to bridge a gap to everyone they know, too.
Then, the really fun thing is that what they then come up with! I experienced the same thing with the writing of Girly. I would read every interview with Margaret Cho and listen to Sleater-Kinney and PJ Harvey, and every little bit of something like that, that I absorbed it like it was encouragement to me, that, “Yeah, you CAN do something that is not going to fit into ‘Must See TV’.” And now, from all of those women doing amazing things, things like Grace are formed, which is another place for women to come together. For me, I don’t know if I could survive the Bush administration if I wasn’t working hard on this stuff. It’s the only way that I can think of in my own little way, to push for an alternative version of the story.

For more information, visit elizabethmerrick.com

Venus Zine; Interview; Edith Frost

Venus Zine, November 2005

Interview with Edith Frost

The Chicago musician's new album, It's a Game, evokes a country carnival by Gretchen Kalwinski Edith Frost’s brand-spanking-new album, It’s a Game, the long-awaited follow-up to 2001’s Wonder Wonder, was released by Drag City on November 15, 2005, with a corresponding CD release party at Chicago’s Hothouse and a glowing, full-page review in the Chicago Tribune.

Known for her heartbreak-y tunes and melancholy, wistful lyrics, Frost is used to fielding questions from journalists about her relationships. She's matter-of-fact about a recent breakup on her massive blog, edithfrost.com, and a recent post expresses frustration that her relationship status gets so much attention. I chatted with Frost at her Chicago apartment in the Ravenswood neighborhood, where we drank Hefeweizen and chewed the fat about Chicago weather, the new album, blogs, stupid jobs, and pets.

So I’ve listened to It’s a Game, and I wanted to tell you that I think it’s so beautiful and melodic.
Thank you. … I like it too.

Do you have a favorite tune on the album?
Well, “Emergency” and “Playmate” are the ones that — when we were talking about what to put out on mp3 — we talked about showcasing. I’d been thinking about those two, and then one day Rian Murphy [Drag City’s head of staff] just yelled out in the studio, “Everybody, what’s the one?” And they were like, “Emergency! Emergency!” “Playmate” is a super old song; it was written nine to 10 years ago. I actually played that when I first starting playing out with my own songs, when I was in New York.

I was wondering if you have daily rituals for getting work done, or do you wait for inspiration to strike?
Rian says that I used to do that a lot more. When he met me and when we were recording Calling Over Time, I guess I was sitting with a guitar every single day. I was just sitting every day playing folk and country tunes for the sake of playing. I really don’t do that any more, like I used to. I don’t practice regularly.

Is it because it is so second nature to you that you don’t even need to make a ritual of it?
No, I should be doing it! I should, because then I’d write a lot more songs. I should definitely get back into that habit. Because if you’re dealing with the music every day, then something is more likely to come of that than sitting and watching All My Children. (Laughs) Well, you never know, there might be something you could use from that show? (Laughs)
There was a quote from the show today that I loved. Something like, “You got me pregnant and now you’re dumping me?!” In that one, the guy was a sperm donor. Like, he was like the family doctor, so he didn’t actually screw her. He impregnated her by insemination. Still pretty shocking.

When I'm home writing during the day, I’ll turn on the judge shows sometimes. They’re a problem for me.
Those I can get sucked into, those and Elimidate, because it’s always on after South Park, which I love. I Tivo that, and so I get Elimidate at the end. At some point, I got sucked into the reality shows. My theory was that I’d start watching all of them and eliminate one every week until I’m down to the One True Reality show that I really love, but I’m still Tivo’ing all of those. My favorite is Big Brother. I don’t really watch-watch them, but I just work right here on the couch and have them on out of the corner of my eye … I swear I’m not … oh well.

I wanted to ask you about public versus private personas, because your music is introspective and wistful, but you’re also out in public mode pretty often, blogging and performing, so do you think of yourself as more of an introvert or extrovert?
Well, my natural inclination is to be a total homebody. I can be perfectly happy just being at home and doing the little projects that I do. And, with the blog, from my perspective, it doesn’t seem that revealing or that I’m giving away too much. When I first started it years ago, I was blabbing too much and using too many names. I keep going back and forth, with “I want a private life, I don’t want them to know everything” and then just talking about everything on the blog. But it was just a matter of learning how to go about it and assuming that who you were talking about was going to read it. And performing is cool, because you get feedback. I do well at it, by my standards. In other words, I get a lot of fulfillment from it.

Had you played with any of the musicians that you worked with on It’s a Game before?
Yeah, pretty much. Lindsay [Anderson], Josh [Abrams], and I had opened for Cat Power three years ago, and Ryan Hembrey is someone who I’ve been working with ever since I moved to Chicago. Mark Greenberg is someone I’ve also known forever, too. He worked on Wonder Wonder and also Love is Real. Jason [Toth], the drummer, is in Manischewitz, and I’d done a tour a while back with them. I have the worst luck with drummers — they always go onto bigger and better things. Like, my first drummer in Chicago was Glenn Kotche and he’s in Wilco now, and then Gerald Dowd who plays with Robbie Fulks, who has about 365 gigs a year. And Adam Vida who is in US Maple. There is just this trail of drummers behind me.

So your last album came out in 2001, four years ago, and a lot of reviewers so far have fixated on the four years between that one and the new album. I thought that seemed sort of weird …
Yeah, I did too.

Because it seems to put out the expectation that you’re supposed to trump out a record a year or something.
Well, the others were like a year and half or two years apart, so maybe I’d set up these expectations by cranking out stuff a little faster. But to me, the time just flew by so fast — it didn’t seem like four years. I think if I’d had it together a bit more, it would have been maybe three and a half years instead, but that’s it.

Do you find yourself going through seasonal cycles of productivity versus simmering?
Well, if I’m touring I’m not writing, and I don’t write when there is something going on with my family. Basically, almost anything can distract me from making music. Your Web site has the heading of “roller skating enthusiast.”

How frequently do you roller skate?
I haven’t in a while — I need to get back into that.

Do you think you’d ever like to skate with a roller derby like the Windy City Rollers?
No, but I bet they’d like me to. I mean, I’m a really good skater. Oh, I shouldn’t say that because there are really good skaters who could say, “No, you’re not.” I mean, I can skate. But I don’t have health insurance, and that is one of their requirements. Also, the roller derby is just not my thing. I’m more into wanting to be a wannabe figure skater. I like doing jumps and spins.

You’re from a warm climate, and it’s getting to be wintertime in Chicago. Do you have coping mechanisms for Chicago winters?
I don’t know — the winter seems to go very fast for me. I got used to the cold because I lived in New York for six years. There, it seemed like worse, sloppier winters, since it was on the ocean. It’s colder and more bitter here, but more tolerable, I think. And I learned in New York how to dress: three pairs of socks, hose under the long johns, pants, blah, blah, blah. I get more bothered by the really gross hot weather. I finally broke down and bought an AC this summer, during that weekend when it was 94 degrees all weekend. Y’know, in Texas, everybody knows that you don’t live without an air conditioner — you just don’t do it! And here, it’s more like you don’t live without heat. All of the buildings I’ve lived in have had good heat but not automatic AC, like in Texas. But, coming from a place where there weren’t really seasons — where it was just hot, hotter, or maybe not as hot — I do like Chicago’s defined seasons.

This is a big apartment building. Do your neighbors ever hear you singing and playing and complain?
It’s a really quiet building and no one has ever complained. Also, I don’t jam that loud; I don’t do the amp too much, just sometimes to make sure it works. I think that if they were going to complain, it would actually be about the incessant TV. I don’t think they hear me; we have pretty thick walls. I don’t hear them, except for little footsteps from above and their cats sometimes.

I hear my landlord’s bassett hound sometimes, when it’s chasing toys across the hardwood floors.
I can’t have a dog in this apartment. I’ve had cats in other apartments, but not here. Really, if I could I would, because they’re so fun, but when I tour and go away, it’d be such a drag for the cats. If I was living with someone it would be different. It wouldn’t be like I was putting this creature in the position to be really lonely. My best pal just got a dog, Lois, so I live vicariously through her, and Drag City has Easy; she is a pitbull who is the sweetest. So I get a lot of pet privileges.

I love offices with dogs. Venus shares space with this skateboard company, and the owner rescued these two greyhounds that are always there.
Greyhounds are so damn big, though!

Yeah, but these two are really mellow and sweet. They sleep in the sun for most of the day, and I’ve only seen them be high strung when they hear a vacuum cleaner.
Yeah, the great nemesis of all dogs — they say it’s the postman, but no!

How do different producers’ styles affect the sound of your albums?
Well, Rian has produced all but the second album, Telescopic, which was done by Neil Haggerty, and they had very different styles. Rian is a lot more of the kind of guy who will gather all the pieces and musicians together and say, “Work your magic!” Whereas Neil was a lot more structured about things. He took detailed notes, even to the point of changing structures a little bit, like adding longer middle parts or whatever. And he was really really specific about what he wanted. And they’re all great ideas, so it worked out. But Rian is a lot freer with bringing people together and letting them work. And he does come up with ideas for arrangements that I wouldn’t necessarily come up with myself. His talent really lies more in being the conduit or the facilitator.

Kind of like throwing all of the ingredients in the pot and letting them work together?
Yeah, and he’s really good about knowing who might sound good together. And he just keeps it light and jokey. He’s a funny guy.

Must be comforting to have a producer who you can trust to go with their instincts like that.
It’s really cool to have worked with Rian for so long. To have him know the language, you know? He knows what is best for it and what will make the music sound good, because he’s heard it for so long, so he knows what works and what doesn’t work.

Were you a musical kid?
My mom had me in lessons periodically. I took some cello and piano when I was a kid, and I got a little guitar when I was 14. And she always had a piano and was always hanging out with orchestra people. And my dad has always been really into jazz and classical stuff, and he turned me onto a lot of stuff too. My mom always had a lot of records around: Joni Mitchell and Carole King, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Led Zeppelin. But yeah, there was always music around, and that was fortunate for me, but I was in Mexico from fourth to ninth grade, and they didn’t have a music program there. So when I moved back to Texas for high school, the other kids had already been in the programs, and I really wasn’t prepared to read music or play an instrument in band or anything. I missed out on the schooling in the early years, kind of caught up, took music lessons at University of Texas, and tried to make up for it. But there are still big holes in my knowledge of music — like as far as the technical part of it, even though I’ve taken all these classes, and I should remember all this theory and stuff. But that’s never been very natural for me. I do a lot better just with three chords and banging around.

I know that a while back you weren’t getting international distribution. What’s going on with that?
Yeah, yeah, they got me a better distribution deal since the last album, but it’s only been in the last six months or year. It used to be that if there was a store that had my stuff, they had it as imports, for the most part. I used to go there and hear, “I’ve never heard of you. I haven’t seen your records. Where do I get your records?” It should be a lot better now, I’m hoping. I’ve never had a bad tour [in Europe], but it’s been a little lacking as far as prepping them for who the fuck I am! (Laughs) But there are always these weird little pockets of fans, like in Stockholm, I had like fuckin’ 20 superfans, with lighters, singing along to every word, but that’s an anomaly.

Where do you like to play in Europe?
Paris has always been great. London I’ve only played once, but it was awesome show. When I played Spain, I had so much fun there, because I speak Spanish — since I used to live in Mexico — and it made it a lot easier to joke with the audience. Sure, they didn’t know who the hell I was there, but I had the advantage of being able to joke with them and speak to them. The show there was a super-fun show.

That’s right, you speak Spanish. I read that you moved around a bit when you were a kid, in Texas and Mexico.
Yeah, the order was San Antonio, Austin, Guadalajara, Austin, San Antonio, Austin, New York, then Chicago. And there were about five different homes in every place.

You’ve maintained your blog for 10 years, you were on the Internet before most people even knew what the Internet was, and you once had a day job as a programmer. Do you still do that work to make extra cash?
No, well, the last little freelance thing that I did was with Drag City, helping them with their Itunes, uploading data entry, but that’s just song titles and stuff, not like “programming.” As far as Web stuff, I just do my own site now. I like separating my fun from my work (laughs). The best job I ever had was as a courier, when I was using my van to drive packages from like downtown FedEx to the airport. It was for a shipping company. I was a substitute-courier for Adam Jacobs, this Chicago character who tapes concerts. And so it was no brainwork — just picking up, signing for the packages, driving them out somewhere while listening to the radio. It was so removed from any of my responsibilities in my real career — the music — that I really [enjoyed] that shit work.

That sounds like a dream day job for a creative person — just being able to zone out.
Yeah, stupid jobs can be really fun like that if you don’t have to worry about what you’re doing so much. Working in music could be a drag if you’re just being immersed in music all day and having to do it for your vocation, too. I think it takes a lot of dedication to keep things separate.
Yeah, it makes you value what you’re doing for the love of it as opposed to the money. I’ve been lucky, because more and more over the years, the music has moved from being hobby to work. Even my tax lady can say so, and then she can take more of a percentage! It’s hard, but the more I work at it the more I can do that. If I got off my ass and played more shows, I could make a pretty comfortable living. It’s just that I’m lazy and I like to avoid working.

You were just playing some shows with Calexico in Austin. How did that go?
I met them in Tulsa — we played there and then Fort Worth the next night — and then we played Austin. It was a blast, it was so fun. I didn’t have copies of It’s a Game with me, so I was just talking it up and playing some songs off of it. I had the pedal-steel player from Calexico, and “Playmate” was actually one of the songs that we were doing. He would come up at the end and we’d do “Mirage” and “Playmate” on pedal steel. It was sooo pretty. I don’t know how they do that, those guys. Pedal steel seems like a really hard instrument to me. But it was perfect.

Many of the tunes on the new album are hinged on heartbreak or a love-affair ending. Do people make assumptions about you and your love life based on that?
Yeah, it’s part of the mythos or whatever. I don’t like it — I wish that my thoughts were a little less rooted in the real (laughs). But the thing is that it’s just the topic that is easiest for me to write about. I have all of these aspects of my life — friends, family, hobbies — but I just don’t choose to write about them. The way I see it is that you write a sad song and you can kind of “validate your feelings” and then you can leave it behind and it becomes just a pretty song eventually — you know, after a few weeks. I just really like sad songs. Some of my favorite songs are really broken-heartedy kind of songs. It’s just ... yeah, why do people like that, why is that enjoyable? I don’t know (laughs). I envy the people who can just make up a story and write really vivid imagery and can take you to a place that they haven’t even necessarily been. I can do that somewhat — a little bit — but that is harder for me. It is easier for me to just pull from my own e-mail or things I’ve said or things I overheard. Plus, the songs do tend to be patched together a lot, because I’ll just write like three phrases down or something when the thing is going on. And then, in a notebook, piece of paper, or on a computer or something and might not come back to it till much later. There was one, “My Lover Won’t Call” — I literally had every word of that for 10 years, and it took me that long to finally stumble across it and say, “Oh, I could finish that” (laughs). So, in that way, the albums end up being much more at a distance than what is going on in my head at the moment, because it is so pieced together time-wise. So the songs are not necessarily about what’s happening at that time period.

You’re actually mining old scraps of paper, moments, and journals?
Yeah, by the point that I am pulling it together and actually making it into a song, that is definitely not the point that I’m actually going through the heartbreak. When the heartbreak is happening, I will tend to write stream-of-consciousness shit, but I’m not in a state where I want to actually sit down and do a demo or figure out chords or anything. It’s just like “bleh, bleh, bleh,” and then I’ll come back to it and be like, “Hmm, that rhymes!” I have to go through [the scraps of paper] later and attempt to pull something out of it that makes sense. It’s just about the discipline to do that.

Top photo © Drag City
Bottom photo © Eric Ziegenhagen

Venus Zine; Interview: Ladyfest

Published on VenusZine.com, November 2005.


You've come a long way, lady
Ladyfests are gaining steam ‘round the globe

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

The first Ladyfest took place in 2000 in Olympia, Washington. In addition to bands like Sleater-Kinney and Cat Power performing, the weeklong event hosted bands like the Rondelles, Neko Case, and Mary Timony, and a dizzying array of varied spoken-word artists, authors, and visual artists, along with workshops and dance partiesOlympia festival, an astounding 80 Ladyfests around the world have been successfully planned, testifying to the need for this sort of event. Ladyfests should not be mistaken for a franchise, however, and the different Ladyfests are not related to one another, except in spirit. The varied places around the world that have hosted Ladyfests include Bloomington, Indiana; Chicago; San Francisco's Bay Area; Nantes, France; Glasgow, Scotland; Toronto; Los Angeles; Stockholm, Sweden; Melbourne, Australia; Seattle; Berlin; Napoli, Italy; and Vienna, Austria. In 2005, approximately 30 Ladyfests were scheduled to take place worldwide. Venus interviewed organizers and performers from this year’s festivals in Brisbane, Australia; Guelph and Ottawa, Canada; Denver; Lansing, Michigan; and Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Organizers
Ladyfest organizers as a whole are a determined lot with an idealistic focus and an overabundance of energy. They also are uniquely open-minded about their attendees and welcome all genders, unlike the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, for example, which restricts attendees to only biological females. Sarah Brown of Ladyfest Ottawa noted that their demographic was "definitely young women 18 to 30, but we had audience members of all ages and genders." Fellow Ottawa Ladyfest organizer Natasha Beaudin attributed their good turnout to dynamic and feminist-oriented programming, affirming that, “it was definitely a better turnout than one would get [from] a lecture on feminism, for example."

Ladyfest Guelph organizer Ashley Fortier was impressed with the event’s large attendance and the variety of ethnicities that were represented, especially given Guelph’s small population. “It was a very diverse crowd, especially at the hip-hop night," she said. Ladyfest Out West organizer Shannon Perez-Darby commented on the queer focus of their festival’s performances. "Over 75 percent of our performers were queer, lesbian, gay and/or trans identified," she said. The organizers of Ladyfest Guelph went a step further by specifically listing their event as"anti-oppressive, feminist, queer and trans-positive, DIY, and collective."

Local Focus, Broad Appeal
The 2005 Ladyfests had varied concentrations in their different locations. Some had a heavy hip-hop presence, while others were more film-centric or focused on performance art or workshops.At Ladyfest Ottawa, the closing party with the Gossip was the most popular event, and Alix Olsen was a "big hit" in Lansing, Michigan. The best-attended performance at Ladyfest South Africa was a band called Electro Muse, a string quartet that combines drum‘n'bass tracks to trip-hop.

Workshops also drew in enormous crowds. Sarah Brown of Ladyfest Ottawa mused that, "A panel discussion on privilege in activism was one of our best-attended events. Bookbinding also had high numbers." Nearby in Guelph, the workshop on urban gardening was hugely popular. Oftentimes, decisions about performers and events were made broadly and then localized, with organizers focused on bringing in as much local talent as possible. "We included similar broad themes like music, art, politics, film, etc., but then tried to re-appropriate it to the Brisbane context," said Ladyfest Brisbane organizer Nikola Errington.

Similarly, Ladyfest Ottawa included local talent such as Les Alumettes, Sarah Hallman, Daydream Square, and the Hussies. Ladyfest Out West brought in resident spoken-word artists Jeanette Henriquez, Angela Palermo, and Isis, in addition to well-known local activists Ashara Ekundayo and Kelly Shortandqueer MC and the Denver band Supply Boy.

The Talent
When asked about their Ladyfest experience, performers often got gushy. Susie Patten was double booked at Ladyfest Brisbane with her bands I Heart Hiroshima and the Mean Streaks, and she enjoyed playing to the crowd’s enthusiastic response. “My bands played first and second, so we thought that there'd be a pretty quiet vibe around, but everyone was really into [it]. The crowd response was fantastic. Maybe that was just because Kate Bush was played in between sets." Patten attended other Ladyfest events while on location and said that "apart from the rad music, the photography exhibition was probably the highlight — so much awesome talent."

Patten said the only changes she would make for future Ladyfest stints are that she’d like to play last. "And for Cat Power to support us, and maybe even for her to fall in love with me,” she said. “So realistic." Deb Cavallaro of the Golden Circles called the Brisbane Ladyfest an "intimate, beautiful, dynamic, honest, and inspiring gig. As far as sisterhood goes, there was a fair bit of that feeling going around that night and [it was] kinda great … when you look at the stage and see more than one woman out there."

Organizational Challenges
The momentum for these festivals seems to be only increasing as time goes by. In 2002, there were 13 Ladyfests; in 2004, the number had reached 26, and in 2005, close to 30 Ladyfests occurred around the globe. This steady growth is encouraging to those of us who aren't having our needs for this kind of event met in mainstream culture. However, there are definite challenges in planning these festivals. First, there is no one source of income or funding for Ladyfests, and one of the first things that organizers are obliged to figure out is how to raise funds through advertising, fundraising events, or auctions.

Ladyfest Ottawa raised funds via craft sales, bake sales, film nights, rock shows, garage sales, art parties, and bottle drives. Sarah Stollak and Latricia Horstman of Lansing, Michigan’s Ladyfest invested the money from their tax returns to fund their town's festival, in addition to applying for grants and selling ads to local businesses. Ladyfest South Africa secured Jose Cuervo as a sponsor and "used most of the funding to pay the marketing and printing" costs for their festival. There are definite challenges to organizing other than finances. Many organizers struggle with the admittedly valid critique that Ladyfest and events like it can work to marginalize women artists and performers. Being cast as an "alternative" culture can run the risk of alienation, an important point to consider when in the planning process. Others depict the female nonprofit organizing process akin to a series of infighting sessions, characterizing women's managerial styles as too emotional or complicated.

However, the typical response from a Ladyfest organizer is that although the planning completely consumed their life for the better part of a year, the payoff was enormously rewarding. Most organizers said that they'd do it again but would change small parts of the process. For instance, they suggested a different organizational structure, setting earlier application deadlines, and, as Nikola Errington of Ladyfest Brisbane said, "we would try and make EVERYTHING all-ages."

When asked if she'd program another Ladyfest, Sarah Brown said, "Hell yes. Organizing this festival is so rewarding. It deeply affects your life, and as an organizer you have the privilege of watching it affect others." Latricia Horstman muses that she set out on a mission to bring Ladyfest to Michigan in a way that changed her community’s mindset, all the while having fun and providing a fantastic opportunity for folks to get involved and learn. “The ultimate goal for everyone participating or attending: to have fun, learn something, and have some money at the end to give to a charity,” she said. “Every year we've done just that."

Good Deeds, Progressive Values
Ladyfest South announced on its Web site that it is a forum for "radical and progressive women everywhere" and goes above and beyond the call of duty by not only paying their performers, but raising a good deal of cash for local social-service projects that assist women, such as the DeKalb Rape Crisis Center and the Women's Center to End Domestic Violence.

Ladyfest Mexico will be held in Monterrey in February 2006, and the organizers are calling for submissions of women artists, including photographers, writers, actresses, filmmakers, musicians, and fashion designers. The festival will focus on subjects such as the situation of women in politics, society, and the economy, with a critical reflection of the role assigned to women in the work-field and family by societal and moral values.

The possibilities of Ladyfest seem endless. As long as there are women producing good work, there is a seemingly endless array of locations and venues for Ladyfests to showcase them. It is of note, though, that what most of the organizers, participants, and attendees are ultimately working for is a world where the kind of work, art, and music featured in Ladyfests around the world would automatically be showcased and valued by a larger and more diverse demographic of society. We've come a long way, ladies, but there is still a long way to go.

The Future of the Fest
Some upcoming Ladyfests in 2006 are in Atlanta and Monterrey, Mexico. For more information about past and future Ladyfests, visit http://www.ladyfest.org.
All photos courtesy of Nikola Errington of Ladyfest Brisbane 2005.

Top photo: Stitch N' Bitch event
Middle photo: Scout Niblett performing
Bottom photo: Women in Activism workshop