#essayist

[pagansphinx]

Black History Month

Maya Angelou (American, 1928-2014)

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit

a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woma

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

from And Still I Rise • Copyright © 1978

#american women #maya anjelou #poet #essayist #black woman wrirer #american writer #african american woman of letters #poetry #contemporary poetry #american poetry #still i rise

[vraiment-amoureux]

please allow me to share my favorite excerpt of Stigmata by Hélène Cixous

"Sign my death with your teeth."

"Want me down to the marrow."

"Eat me up, my love, or else I'm going to eat you up."

L'amour du loup

#cannibalistic #ftm nsft #t4t nsft #ftm switch #queer nsft #trans ftm #cannibalposting #cannibalcore #romantic cannibalism #stigmata #l'amour du loup #helene cixous #essayist #love of the wolf

[atimodeus]

y'all asked me for that Katsuki / anger essay and now this fuckin' thing is like 10 pages long.

i told y'all i like to yap.

#bakudeku #writeblr #essay writing #essayist #mha bkdk #katsuki bakugou #it's not done yet either #this thing is going to be entirely too long #i don't know the meaning of concision #i never shut the fuck up

[gogandmagog]

I need your thoughts in a Gilbert who didn't meet Anne until later in life- let's say at redmond

For the sake of historical accuracy, PLEASE PICTURE ME DOING THE RASPUTIN DANCE right now and as I read this. I love this ask, and I highkey stan the asker.

I think we’ve briefly touched on this topic before, in a superficial uh, roundabout sort of way, but I’m obv thrilled for getting a little (read: okay, a lot) more detailed about the matter.

What would Gilbert be like, if he hadn’t met Anne until Redmond?

Anytime anyone takes this approach in fanfiction… I admit; I cower in a corner and try to look away. Of all the Anne multiverses, this is my least favorite. This very notion makes my head and my heart go OW OW OW. For me, a big part of why Anne and Gilbert went in so deep was the heft and weight of the history between them. This story is a slow burn that lasts well over a decade, these two idiots-in-love have known each other since they were 11 and ‘nearly 14’ respectively. We have all the good stuff, right? Their initial meet-cute-to-end-all-other-meet-cutes, the frenemies, the one-sided pining, the grand gestures that give way to an honest friendship (no one makes Anne laugh like Gilbert does, and he’s the SOLE fellow she feels comfortable enough with to share her honest feelings with, pls see: Rollings Reliable)… it just means so much to me. When we take that away, we take away so much of what makes them… welllll, them.

But of course, I can rely on Gilbert himself to articulate these thoughts, too…

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” said Gilbert, looking steadily down into Anne’s uplifted face, “but wouldn’t it have been more beautiful still, Anne, if there had been NO separation or misunderstanding . . . if they had come hand in hand all the way through life, with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other?” — Gilbert ‘the absolute sweetest and most poignant peach’ Blythe, Anne of Avonlea

But hey. Yes. Let’s go there anyway, because it is… exceedingly interesting and natural to wonder and speculate about.

To make it make sense, we must first subtract Anne from Green Gables, and Avonlea.

And oof… there’s a lot of collateral there. Minnie May Berry would’ve suffered the most and pays for the Anne-void discrepancy with her actual life. And Miss Lavendar Lewis? She would’ve never reconnected with Stephen Irving… and Mister Harrison would have stayed estranged from his wife. There’d be no A.V.I.S., although that seems like teeny-tiny small potatoes in the wake of the rest. On the flip side, would Matthew have lived longer had the boy meant for Green Gables actually been sent? A solid maybe. And Gilbert? He would’ve never had any sense knocked (cracked, slated) into him.

Before Anne arrives in Avonlea we have a couple canon descriptions of Gilbert, thanks to Diana. We learn that he ‘torments the life’ out of the girls (and further, that they like it), and that he’s “aw’fly” handsome. We first see him pinning Ruby Gillis’ hair unto the back of her desk chair. A hot minute later, he’s all but desperate for Anne to look at him. Moreover, he thinks Anne should look at him.

“Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with failure.” — Anne of Green Gables

Without Anne? Sheesh. Gilbert Blythe is a bit of cad (need that gif of Josie saying, “Gilbert Blythe is rake” right about here). Just a regular… 19th century [insert the F word here] boy, tbh. BUT WAIT. We have a canon quote to support this, too.

‘Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met and faced. White Sands youth were a rather “fast” set, and Gilbert was popular wherever he went. But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne’s friendship and perhaps some distant day her love; and he watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to pass in judgment on it.’ — Anne of Avonlea

I feel in terms of just straight-up facts, we can reduce Anneless Gilbert to this:

1. a smarty pants in an academic sense,

2. a smarty pants in the jokey non-academic sense

3. popular

4. cute af, and aware he’s cute af, to top it all off, that ‘teasing smile’ never quits and he carries on winking ‘with inexpressible drollery’ just whenever he sees fit

Obviously, this list looks a lot like the Gilbert we canonly know, until we arrive at…

5. egotistical on a degree level of… eh, medium-rare?

Without Anne to ego-check him; Gilberts pride remains fully intact, and what’s more, it’s grown and developed into a mature and self-assured vanity by the time he lands in Kingsport. Without Anne, by the time he’s 17, I think he’s walked home and/or kissed every pretty or exceptional girl in a good fifteen-mile radius. I would alsooo guess that Avonlea folks imagined he’d eventually settle down with Ruby. But what they don’t know is that he’s gone kissed every last one of the fine Gillis sisters. Even the oldest ones, Myra and Sara. I would also confidently speculate that this boy’s rather cavalier with his Romeo-ing ways, too, and that he’s inadvertently hurt some very real feelings… without even fully realizing it. He just doesn’t take anything… seriously. Which Gillis sister did he kiss first? Oh, don’t ask him. He doesn’t remember.

And let’s support this guess with another semi-related and semi-justifying canon quote, shall we?

"Did I ever correspond with Ruby Gillis? I'd forgotten. Poor Ruby!” — Gilbert ‘dashing out heart hopes everywhere’ Blythe, Anne of Ingleside

But awoooo, settle down? No, Sir, not Gilbert. Gilbert wanders into Redmond a bachelor, free and clear of any responsibilities or ties, back home. (Of course, he gets all sorts of fan mail via post from every corner of PEI, while he’s at school.) ‘Excellent creatures though they are,’ there’s not been a single girlie-pop that he’s crossed paths with that has yet been able to stir his deeps… or even his shallows.

ADDITIONALLY… he walks into Redmond maybe two or three years earlier than he did in the books. Because without Anne, Gilbert has no reason to give up the Avonlea school -- he saves his would-be room and board expenses by living at the Blythe homestead, and very simply and economically gets to college all the quicker for it. He does still want to be a Doctor, mind you. He has a great-uncle that’s a Doctor over in Four Winds, and Gilbert still believes…

“It’s a splendid profession,” he said enthusiastically. “A fellow has to fight something all through life . . . didn’t somebody once define man as a fighting animal? . . . and I want to fight disease and pain and ignorance . . . which are all members one of another. I want to do my share of honest, real work in the world, Anne . . . add a little to the sum of human knowledge that all the good men have been accumulating since it began. The folks who lived before me have done so much for me that I want to show my gratitude by doing something for the folks who will live after me. It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can get square with his obligations to the race.” — Gilbert ‘getting rather sentimental now’ Blythe, Anne of Avonlea

Now here’s where I fall off and digress again. I believe this is the end of educated guessing and facts about what an Anneless Gilbert probably looks like.

But FOR BONUS POINTS, what happens with this version of Gilbert collides with a version of Anne that never made it to Avonlea? Do they still get together? Likely. But HOW?

If someone put a gun to my head (lollll, as iffff) and made me write (as previously denounced, I realize) a fanfiction about it (warning, it’s definitely gonna be giving… sensationalist and 🤌🏻 fanfictiony, but really if you’re gonna go AU… go AU; all this fully recognizing that this would never be a LMM setting), here’s how I’d pull it off:

Anne, by the time she’s say fourteen, has run away from the Hopetown Assylum. It’s nothing but hunger (see Anne of Ingleside for canon support of this), verbal abuse, (and despite the name) hopelessness there. Anne’s resourceful, we know she has a special knack for making things happen, and she decides to strike out on her own. But not without a plan. There’s not a lot of jobs for kids out there that also come with a safe place to lay their heads at night (though she might make up her mind to sleep under a nice obliging tree, should the need arise; “I had made up my mind that if you didn’t come for me to-night I’d go down the track to that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all night. I wouldn’t be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don’t you think?” ), so she, playing to her strengths and daring to dream, thinks of drama and being a stage actress. She gives a spectacularly good reading of Tennyson’s “the Lady of Shalott” to a Hopetown Theatre manager who not only pities her but also finds her wildly talented and very entertaining. Alas… he cannot offer her a job. He tells her, though, that he has contacts with W.W. Cole Circus (they toured Nova Scotia in the 1880’s, clearly I fact checked this too; I have whatever unimaginative disability it is that requires even my fantasies to have bearings in reality), that W.W. Cole is always looking for cheap labor while they tour. Only!! They really just hire/have use for boys. (We can circle back to déjà vu-ish Green Gables problems here.) Anne, however, doesn’t care. She’s got a lead. She knows she can work just as hard as any boy, and means to prove it. She’s given a job (mucking elephant stalls, for starters) on a trial basis (psst, Avonlea calling again), and does such a bang-up job that she’s kept on for a week. She becomes an instant friend with “Nova Scotian Giantess” Anna Swan. (Also a real person, from a real W.W. Cole circus circuit, pls see above regarding fantasies borne from reality. She was 7 feet, 11 inches tall, 400 pounds, and married another ‘giant’ from Kentucky). Anna advocates for Anne to be kept on permanently (I’m trying to @ Aunt Josephine almost, here). Anna, who is emphatically religious (irl when she retired, she went on to teach Sunday School at her church) and ladylike and kind, sees to Anne’s studies and upbringing when they aren’t working. She recognizes Anne’s academic abilities and leverages her own position to see that Anne is promoted, as the years carry on. Anna, duh, encourages Anne to save her wages—enough to get herself through four years at Redmond college… that she might go on to have a career outside the instability of circus acts. By the time Anne is 20, she’s far more widely recognized as Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald, and she’s a terribly accomplished trapeze artist and a very elegant acrobat (let’s thrown in one minor incident where she fell off a tightrope and broke her ankle here, as a nod to, yeah, Avonlea ridgepoles), as well as especial homies with every tiger and elephant and cigar-smoking-chimp that graces the ring. She wears the assigned pink tights and costume despite often still lamenting that “red haired people should never wear pink.” She also has finally saved enough of her wages to get herself a B.A.

Her very last performance sees her signing off at W.W. Cole’s Kingsport show. Who do you bet’s in the audience? Gilbert Blythe. The football captain, Lamba Theta inductee, incumbent class president… who also, as it happens, is there escorting one Philippa Gordon.

“I saw only one really handsome fellow among them. He went away before you came. I heard his chum call him Gilbert.” — Phil Gordon, Anne of the Island

Gilbert’s gone into serious crushing territory on ‘Lady Cordelia’ at first glance. Phil’s also taken with her. The two spend the rest of the show trying to spot Lady Cordelia in her support roles of the other acts. Is that Lady Cordelia lighting the fiery rings? At any rate, for Gilbert, the deeps? Shaken, stirred, invariably earthquaked, when he and Phil get to make actual introductions at the end of the evening production, as they and the rest of the crowd walk out. Anne, on the other hand, is unimpressed at best.That boy was “awfully bold to wink at a strange girl”… all while another was on his arm, no less. Rather a splendid chin, though. 👀 One might say he was equally as handsome as he was bold.

“But, of course, the one I like best I can’t get. Gilbert Blythe won’t take any notice of me, except to look at me as if I were a nice little kitten he’d like to pat. Too well I know the reason. I owe you a grudge, Queen Anne.” — Philippa Gordon, Anne of the Island

That small matter aside, who else might be in attendance? I mean… Royal Gardner, of course. (This could easily substitute his, “And you are the Miss Shirley who read the Tennyson paper at the Philomathic the other evening, aren’t you?”)

Days later, and still wanting to know exactly who she was, Phil catches sight of ‘Lady Cordelia’ (wearing Redmond colors, at that!) reading epitaphs at Old St. John’s cemetery, and we slip back into canon here. Almost. Phil and Anne become fast friends, as is natural and fitting, but far less can be said for poor Gilbert, who now has a very awkward time trying to gently cast off Phil while simultaneously wanting to cozy up to her new freshette friend. After all, Anne is Gilbert’s ideal woman.

If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal woman the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to vex her soul. Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy; but a boy has his dreams as have others, and in Gilbert’s future there was always a girl with big, limpid gray eyes, and a face as fine and delicate as a flower. — Gilbert ‘Smitten Kitten’ Blythe, Anne of Avonlea

For Gilbert to finally win over that ‘Queen Anne, my Queen Anne, queen of my heart’ we’ll need to see academic rivalry, a relationship-mending grand gesture (these two starting off on the wrong foot is a canon event, and I cannot interfere), Gilbert Saves a Life or Two (lots of congenital health problems for people of Anna’s size, her hand is shooting right up as a volunteer for this incident, and by now Gilbert is nearly white coat qualified), one rejected proposal after two years of genuine friendship, Anne and Roy fully courting, and Gilbert Blythe’s to ego finally give way to the purity of his dreams and aspirations.

“He had made up his mind, also, that his future must be worthy of its goddess. She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her friends; an influence which would endure as long as she was faithful to those ideals and which she would as certainly lose if she were ever false to them. In Gilbert’s eyes Anne’s greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the petty practices of so many of the Avonlea girls—the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor. Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations.” -- Anne of Avonlea

And ultimately… right about there is where we’d revert back to a bad case of typhoid for Anne to realize her feelings, too. It would take Gilbert a full four years and nearly dying trying, to put a ring on it. For my last trick (read: in conclusion), here's a cute lil’ attempt at more canon justification for my utter nonsense (if you just squint):

"Mother dearwums," said Jem, "can I have those old ostrich feathers in the garret to sew in the back of my pants for a tail? We're going to have a circus tomorrow and I'm to be the ostrich. And we're going to get an elephant." "Do you know that it costs six hundred dollars a year to feed an elephant?" said Gilbert solemnly. "An imaginary elephant doesn't cost anything," explained Jem patiently. Anne laughed. "We never need to be economical in our imaginations, thank heaven." — Anne of Ingleside

SO FRIENDS. ROMANS. @batrachised.

What would yooooour take on an Anneless Gilbert be? An Avonlealess Anne? I’m terribly curious, as always!

#wow this is long #if there was an Olympic Team for AoGG au speculation I do believe I would have just qualified #i don’t dare tag this lm Montgomery #essayist #anne of green gables #gilbert blythe #anne shirley #19th century circus 🎪 #speculation specialist

[dariamalek]

Mahsa Amini: How A 43 Year Long Battle Has Finally Made It Into The Light

I am done with being silent. 

I am done with tolerating the silence of others. 

My name is Daria Malek, and I am an Iranian-Canadian writer who’s art was silenced due to the control of the Iranian regime. Ironically, The Green Ney was a story of how women were silenced during the Iranian revolution, especially their art. 

Yesterday, on Saturday October 1st, over fifty thousand people had closed off Yonge Street, the longest street in the world, protesting for Mahsa Amini, and the other 83 people murdered for speaking up for their human rights. 

I am so privileged to live in a country where I, not only as a woman, but also a visibly minority, have protection beyond my rights. And as I watch my fellow Iranians in their homeland fight for theirs, it makes me wonder what am I do to with this privilege? What am I to do with the freedom of speech that I have? 

I was silenced by the Iranian regime, but that is no longer. 

Four years ago, I began writing a novel called The Green Ney, the story of an infertile American journalist in a dying marriage, who travels to Iran in January 1979 and gets stuck in the middle of the bloodshed of the Iranian Revolution with a lonely, mute orphan to care for. 

Through her journey, she met multiple women who symbolized each right that was stripped from them during the revolution. Each of these 12 women were women that I had met on my trip to Iran in 2016, spanning over the three cities that I have visited. These are real women. These are real people. 

This was my time to speak for these women who were silenced in their own dirt but, I had to face a dilemma: if I were to publish this novel, I would be banned from going back home to my country, and even put my family, including my grandparents, in harms way. 

This was three years ago. Enough is enough. It is time to speak up. 

Mahsa Amini was 22 years old when she was detained by “morality police” in Iran for not wearing her headscarf on her head correctly. Not because she had killed someone, assaulted someone, or stolen something from someone but, because she had not covered her hair to the standard of the “morality police.” How ironic that they are called “morality police” when they have no problem murdering a child because they are so weak to be worried about the hair of a women turning men on. Where are your morals?

Why are you painting our men to be so weak? So weak, that the wrists and ankles of a woman may awaken their uncontrollable sexual urges? 

Our men are better than this. Our women are more respectable than this. 

The greatest part of watching these protests was seeing the men and women come together in unison to fight for the women of Iran together. 

For Mahsa Amini, you will always be remembered as an awakening for the people and a motion for change. We will honour your name and what you did to change the world. 

Shervin Hajipour, your angelic voice and talent will be forever in our ears, singing for what you believe in, in hopes that people will listen and feel your pain and we did. 

Hadis Najafi, your courage will never be forgotten. To be so brave, beyond your years, only for them to strip you of the rest of your life. But, I hope you know that they may have taken your life but they could never take away the strength and bravery that you possessed. When I watch the video of your blonde hair going up in a ponytail, ready to fight for the land you walk on, it gives me chills - an inspiration to truly step up. 

For all the other people who were protesting or injured and murdered for speaking up: you make me proud to call myself an Iranian. We as people have a history of being headstrong and courageous. We must protect our beautiful culture, our art, our poetry, our food, our dance and everything that makes us Iranian, from the Islamic regime. They stole it from us once and it is our duty to take it back. 

What started off as a feministic fight, turned into a humanitarian revolution. 

If you have any Iranian friends, please reach out to them. Ask them how they are doing. Give them a hug and stand by them. They’re worried about their families back home; they can’t talk to them or hold them. Give back the support that we gave the rest of the world when they needed us. 

And please, help us be the voice of the people who don’t have one. 

#iranian revolution #iran #iranian protests #canadian writer #essayist #mahsa amini

[dabiconcordia]

Jenny kissed me

Jenny kiss'd me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have miss'd me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kiss'd me. By Leigh Hunt

#dream the dreams of other men #my hero is gone #leigh hunt #poet #essayist #journalist

[afrotumble]

#ralph waldo emerson #writer #essayist

[vlovelovette]

NEXT YT VID | “ART IS NOT DEAD” | JAN. 4 2024 , 2pm PST

Want to go into 2024 viciously supporting trans creators and their creative endeavors? Consider starting here.

#youtube #essayist #essay #ftm #creator

[kyoshine]

You guys should read my essay I think it’s very good and cool

#nier replicant #nier kaine #gender #transgender #transfem #essay #nier #essayist

[higherentity]

#doireann ní ghríofa #poet #essayist #irish #doireann #writer

[onlylivingirlinny]

"Desire is the way your heart pumps, it’s guttural and lives in the way the wind greets you on your birthday. You are older and hungry. You have it in you to get what you need. Desire bubbles in a laugh, a sunrise, and I am happy because I can be." - Welcome To My Island (And My Problems) (a snippet from an upcoming essay.............)

#my writing #oooooo so nervous sharing my own writing again!!!!!! #pls enjoy #im being so brave #caroline polachek #welcome to my island #substack #desire i want to turn into you #personal essay #essayist #music criticism #cultural criticism #love quotes #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writers and poets #gryfhindor #women writers #writerscommunity #romance

[pagansphinx]

The great American author, Toni Morrison (1931-2019) • photographed in her office at Random House by Jill Krementz • 1974 • all rights reserved (via The Wall Street Journal).

#art #photography #toni morrison #african american author #pulitzer prize winner #woman writers #nobel prize winner #black woman novelist #essayist #black history month 2024 #jill krementz #pagan sphinx art blog

[scotianostra]

December 4th 1795 saw the birth of the Essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle.

Born in one of my favourite villages, merely because it sounds so Scottish, Ecclefechan, he was educated at Edinburgh University. Carlyle was a Schoolmaster for a short time, but decided on a literary career, visiting Paris and London.

Carlyle was famous for being one of the most significant social commentators of the time. He was known to be a grumpy stubborn man, but it was also believed the reason behind his surly character could have been as a result of lifelong problem with gastric ulcers which would explain his bad mood but at the same time perhaps his argumentativeness contributed to his brilliant and satirical writing.

As well as his satirical work, which was his bread and butter, he also wrote historical works, a three volume work on The French Revolution as well as his book on leadership which found form in his book On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History in the book he compared a wide range of different types of heroes, including Odin, Muhammad, Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon, William Shakespeare, Dante, Samuel Johnson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robert Burns, John Knox, and Martin Luther.

Thomas Carlyle was keen on art, mainly portraits and his desire to see a National Portrait Gallery in Scotland bore fruit albeit after his death.

He would have been buried in Westminster Abbey as was offered but it was rejected due to his explicit wish to be buried beside his parents in Ecclefechan, he was a devoted son, frequently returning home to visit his parents.

His final words were, “So, this is death. Well!”

Carlyle has no less than three statues around Scotland, one in his hometown of Ecclefechan, one in Kelvingrove Park and one in The National Portrait gallery. There is also a statue at The Embankment in London. The house he grew up in is now a museum.

#scotland #scottish #history #historian #essayist #writer

[atimodeus]

I know that oversharing about your mental health and trauma on the internet is generally ill-advised, but listen:

As someone who writes essays and fiction with his heart on his sleeve, nothing means more to me than hearing that my work made someone else feel less alone.

I write a lot of heavy shit. It's my way of processing a lifetime worth of grief and working my way through the ringer of recovery. Most of the time, I assume I'm doing little more than screaming into the digital void, and honestly, that's fine with me. I never expected anything more.

So when someone comments on or DMs me about a piece of mine, telling me how reading it made them feel seen, or heard, or less isolated in otherwise extremely isolating circumstances, I take that to heart. I etch those words into the walls of my mind, and I make damn sure that these folks who had the courage to share their pain with me didn't do so for nothing.

I have a folder on my desktop of screen shots. Every comment, every message, every story you share with me — I save them. I often anticipate that my words will be lost in the sea of online content, but when someone takes the time to be vulnerable with me in response to my work, their words will not. I save them. I return to them when I need reminding why I do this shit in the first place.

I know it's corny as hell, but I don't care. I mean it:

If you have ever reached out to me and shared your story, your feelings, your pain — thank you. I have not forgotten.

#my writing #essay writing #essayist #personal essay #creative nonfiction #fanfiction writer #writeblr #writers on tumblr #mental health #dealing with grief #ptsd recovery #recovery journey #recovery journal #thank you #you make it all worth it #you turn my attention to the beauty of being human

[asm5129]

OUT NOW: What It Really Means To Wear the Mask [AUGUST VIDEO ESSAY]

POTENTIAL epilepsy warning. I'm not sure, but please be aware of the possibility!

Hello to all my Queers and Dears, and welcome to the August 2023 entry in my series of monthly video essays!

In this video, I dig into the discourse around which versions of Spider-Man are faithful to the character, and attempt to argue that often that discourse misses what makes someone worthy of the mantle Spider-Man by focusing too much on a limited view of his everyman status and on his power set.

So come with me as we explore What it Really Means to Wear the Mask! Enjoy!

#video essay #essayist #spider man #peter parker #analysis #mcu #marvel #tom holland #tobey maguire #andrew garfield #spider-man #miles morales #across the spiderverse #gwen stacy #spider-verse #anyone can wear the mask #real heroism #hero #comic book heroes #compassion #kindness #hope #Youtube

[saresmusings]

Joan Didion, The Art of Fiction No. 71

Interviewed by Linda Kuehl

ISSUE 74, FALL-WINTER 1978

The Paris Review

#joan didion #saresmusings #the paris review #the art of fiction #linda kuehl #1978 #for you page #writers quotes #quotes #interview #on writing #joan didion quotes #thoughts on writing #author quotes #writer quotes #female writers #essayist #author interview #fall 1978 #winter 1978 #dreams #nightmare #qootd