I’m very grateful to the fabulous Diane Gottlieb for taking time to interview me in this life-affirming conversation about writing, mental health, trauma, bodies, and the inner critic! Please do check out the interview at WomanPause. (Thanks, Diane!)
Dear Humans,
This summer solstice, I’m elated to announce that my essay “Hot Thing #2 (2:30am)” was published in the inaugural issue of HAGS ON FIRE! Thrilled for the conflagration of sisterhood alongside Alma Luz Villanueva, Elaine Gale, Gayle Brandeis, Amy Buchwald, Michaela Carter, Amy Roost, Bridget Kelley-Lossada, Bella Mahaya Carter, Robin Harwick Jenny Forrester, Jude Walsh, and Barb Buckner Suarez…
…HAGS ON FIRE is a sparkly new literary zine featuring “Unapologetically embodied writing about menopause—minus the patriarchy.” (Extreme gratitude to Laraine Herring for noticing such a place was lacking in the world, and for manifesting HAGS ON FIRE.)
Please consider sending your work to HAGS ON FIRE! “We are specifically looking for work to feature from BIPOC folks, neurodivergent folks, non cis-het folks, and folks with physical disabilities.”
Love,
Rebecca
My essay “Hot Thing” (about menopause) was published last Sunday on The Rumpus. (You can read it here.) In the literary community, The Rumpus is a big deal, and I’ve never had anything published there. And to any woman, writing an essay about something as personal as menopause is a big deal. (Theme emerges; to me, this whole event is a big deal.)
(I’m grateful to Zoe Zolbrod and Martha Bayne, editors at The Rumpus, who asked thoughtful questions and helped me fortify the essay and say what I meant to say. May all writers have the experience of working with such helpful editors along the way!)
It’s also a big deal because they chose to use my original art alongside the essay. I was glad to be asked what I wanted them to use. To answer, I thought about the essay, extracted themes and images. Flames, visibility and invisibility, beauty, mess…The day before I sent the final revision, the image of Venus rising appeared. When I should have been working on edits, I printed the Venus image. On tracing paper with a felt pen, I sketched her lines and contours, placed the paper over various backgrounds, finally settling on a painting of the moon which I made decades ago. And from a photograph of autumn leaves torn from a discarded Glen Helen calendar, I cut flames. Pieces arranged but not glued down, I took a photo and sent it. I felt self-conscious about presenting the art (because I’m an amateur) but blazed ahead anyway. That they chose to use this image validated what I tell my students: Trust your instinct.
So that’s part of the story of this essay.
Another part is that that publication of “Hot Thing” inspired a 2:30am craft essay about writing the essay, which I am now hatching. Not sure where it will end up, but I’m holding on to the tail of the kite.
Another—maybe most important—part is of the story is that I am claiming this new phase in my life. As I put words and images into the world, I am no longer practicing the art of invisibility.
Rebecca Kuder 