(▰˘◡˘▰)
Before we start, I want to acknowledge the manifold crises that we are living through right now in the United States. In particular, I’d like to bring your attention to a 15-year-old girl from Birmingham, MI who was placed in a juvenile detention center in mid-May—and is still being held there—for not doing her homework. Read her story at ProPublica and consider calling and emailing the people keeping this young Black girl locked up in a pandemic for having difficulty with online school to demand her release. Petition and contact information here.
Hello! Welcome, especially new subscribers, to this second and final pre-launch link recommendation missive.
Next week the newsletter starts for-real with something about taking field notes on process while trying something new. My process for music journalism is mostly wait-and-then-produce-in-a-panic. Maybe you can panic-produce a novel draft but one of my favorite parts has been learning how and why I’m doing what I’m doing. What I’ve learned about myself may not necessarily be helpful for someone else but I think the documenting process could be.
I had originally planned on writing about rejection but a) what a bummer note to start this off on! Links are pink! I’ve amassed many pictures of Snoopy to uses as lead images! Let’s keep a PMA! and b) The Cut published an incredible package on writing last week that included a piece on rejection featuring Rachel Khong, Samantha Irby, and five other great authors.
A final note: thank you to Todd Burns for shouting out my little endeavor in this week’s Music Journalism Insider. Todd’s newsletter is an incredible resource for aspiring and veteran music journos, alike, and I’m consistently impressed by the breadth of what he features in each dispatch.
Black Women Are Heroic; They Aren't Superheroes by Andre Gee (more fire.)
This is a really smart piece about the societal expectations of Black women and trauma. It deftly links the lack of solidarity, so to speak, for Megan Thee Stallion after she was recently (allegedly) shot by Tory Lanez, the entrenched patriarchy in J. Cole’s flimsy Noname diss “Snow on tha Bluff,” and the murder and kidnapping of Oluwatoyin Salau, a 19-year-old Black Lives Matter activist who spoke publicly about being sexually assaulted.
I miss real essays in music journalism, the kind of thing where someone deeply embedded in what they’re writing about finds a kinship between current music events and the culture of contemporary society. (In this case, it’s the culture of America since it started.) I don’t know this writer but if I were still editing a music mag, I’d want to work with him.
How I Cured My Writer’s Block With Techno by Stan Parish (LitHub)
This piece is littered with music writing wrist-slappers (“glittering synths”!) and refers to Avalon Emerson as “uncommonly talented.” Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s great, I just think that phrase needs some unpacking—uncommonly talented because techno DJs and producers are not? Because she’s a woman? What’s the deal here? (It’s also not strange to clear your head on the dancefloor, my guy. It’s supposed to be a liberatory space, especially techno in its original context!)
These bugaboos aside, I’m linking to this piece because I had not thought about the DJ mix as a writing tool. Over the weekend I catching up with my friends/workshopmates/novel-writing lifelines Raph and Cam and it came up that I don’t listen to music when I write. It was a surprise! But I find it way too distracting. I often listen to music before I write. Sometimes I take a break to listen to a bunch of songs to refocus. Can’t do it while I’m writing, though. But now I wanna know what a DJ mix can do for me/all of us, so this newsletter comes with a side mission to find the best DJ mixes for writing. Send some my way but I’ll be, of course, digging on my own.
(fwiw, I really admire LitHub and read it pretty religiously and don’t blame the writer or editor for the clichés, I just do wish music expertise got a little bit more respect. If you want to read more about dance music as a technology for freedom/educate yourself to be a better dance music consumer, artist and theorist DeForrest Brown, Jr. put together this great reading list over at Crack.)
It’s Time to Radically Rethink Online Book Events by Kate Reed Petty (Electric Literature)
Food for thought. I think more outgoing writers should definitely consider hosting their own URL live events that deviate from the in-store book launch norm. Early in the pandemic I watched Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah teach a craft lesson on Instagram Live. It was great! Lots to chew on here.
If you read this piece, though, please consider this counterpoint from Madeline Gobbo, who does events at my “local,” Skylight Books. They write (condensing and emphasis mine): “I appreciate the spirit of this but really wish the author would consider that all of these suggestions shift even more work and pressure onto event organizers and booksellers who are already stressed and under-resourced. We are entering a time where individual achievements won’t save us. Solidarity and sustainability is our only recourse as artists, as patrons, as workers, and as small businesses.” Read their whole thread here.
Bonuses!
A mix: Having a Bike by Bamenda, the no. 1 purveyor of emotional moisturizer, for dublab. Aretha! Frankie Beverly & Maze! A soundtrack for bike rides! (I’m undecided about including music in every newsletter, so please feel free to comment or shoot me a line with your thoughts.)
A poem: RuPaul is Fracking by Kyle Carrero Lopez in Frontier Poetry.
A short story: Lizards by Laura van den Berg from her new collection I Hold a Wolf By the Ears.