Around the Web

Some really great things around the web lately.

Black Looks links to a literary magazine by South African lesbians. A lot of the little things are only ok, but one or two pieces are really moving and very much worth your time. There's an amazing story of a woman who became a fourth wife and, while training to be a healer, discovered--acknowledged to the woman training her--her lesbianism. It's really gripping. You can download the whole ‘zine here.

On the issue of reproductive rights, the Cardiff feminists at Mind the Gap ask their American readers to participate in Ms. Magazine’s I had an abortion petition campaign. Women who have not had abortions but support access to this important right can sign an ancillary petition.

In more literary matters, John Baker’s blog has been features answers to his five questions all month: there’s a whole array of mini-interviews with litbloggers to page through. No doubt you’ll find, as I have, links to lots of new blogs to check out in the coming months.

If you need a late-summer pick-me-up, head over to Summer Pierre’s always interesting blog, An Accident of Hope. She’s doing these really cool Lynda Barry inspired fliers every day this month, picking an everyday word (toothpaste, babysitter) and making a flier for it, a kind of prose poem. Very nice. Lynda Barry, the Seattle cartoonist, has long been

Finally, a big congratulations out to my friend and fellow Seattleite-turned-New Yorker (but she’s REALLY a New Yorker—Brooklyn!) AND new mom, Megan Kelso, who’s graphic novel, The Squirrel Mother has just come out to great acclaim. We’ve been commiserating over the long, long gestation (of our books—our babies just took the normal amount of time) when we see each other from time to time and it’s fun and funny to have had daughters and books both born within weeks of each other.