I’ve been working on a book proposal for the last year or so … and as this announcement from Publishers Marketplace indicates … it was bought by Bloomsbury. Wow!
I’m writing a biography of Rita Mae Brown, early lesbian-feminist activist, author of what might be the best-selling lesbian novel of all time (Rubyfruit Jungle—its only rival is The Price of Salt/Carol), quite possibly America’s first celesbian, and now the author of more than 50 (you read that right) mysteries featuring chatty animals and murder-adjacent fox hunters.
My interest in Rita Mae goes way back—Rubyfruit Jungle was one of the first lesbian novels I read, and as a teenage tennis fan, I gazed upon her in 1980 when, to the delight of the British tabloids, she accompanied her then-girlfriend Martina Navratilova to Eastbourne and Wimbledon. The other week I had lunch with my college roommate, and I was shocked to learn that she, like me, can still recite the lines from one of the poems in Brown’s book The Hand That Cradles the Rock that for some reason I wrote on our apartment window. (We could’ve cleaned it off a lot sooner than we did, but …) In 2017, I persuaded Slate that I should profile her, and I spent a weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, getting a tour of her farm and attending the last hunt of the season. I’m pretty sure that was the only assignment I ever totally and utterly failed to deliver. The more I read about her, the less I could bear to focus on just one or two aspects of her life.
Having read far too many books about the challenges of writing biography (It’s a shockingly common sub-genre!), I have a sense of what I’m getting myself into, but … well, I’ll get back to you in three years’ time and let you know how it went. (Actually, I plan to continue this newsletter, with a slight shift of focus, so no need to wait quite so long.)
I’ve been researching quite intensively for the last 12-18 months, mostly looking at books and magazine articles, but now I’ll be shifting to the next stage: visiting archives and conducting interviews. I’ll be in Charlottesville in the second half of September, looking at her papers, and after that I’ll be sending my Zoom number to anyone who’ll chat with me. (PLEASE be in touch if you or anyone you know has experiences or information to share. Or if you have questions you want the biography to answer. Charlottesville restaurant recs also appreciated.)
COME SEE ME:
Edinburgh: Starting at 7:30 on Thursday, Oct. 2, I’ll be talking with legendary Lavender Menace co-founder Sigrid Nielsen and the awesome queer book group Wuthering Dykes. Details here.
Eugene, Ore: On Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 2 p.m. I’ll be giving a talk at the University of Oregon. Details here.
Portland, Ore: At 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16, I’ll be giving a talk at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. Details here.
Portland, Ore: At 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17, I’ll be chatting with Judith Barrington, author, most recently of Virginia’s Apple, at Up Up Books. Details here.
Seattle: On Monday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m., I’ll be chatting with Kira Deshler, creator of the fabulous Paging Dr. Lesbian newsletter, at Charlie’s Queer Books. Details here.
RECOMMENDATIONS: I didn’t go too crazy at the various Edinburgh festivals (and, I must confess, the morning after seeing a mere two shows the day before, I was so spent I skipped a Film Festival movie I had tickets for), but a few things worth mentioning: Make It Happen, the story of the rise, fall, and even further fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland was really good, but it didn’t believe in itself. It was a musical that should’ve been a play (I’m not sure I’ve ever thought that before, much less typed it), and while it was great to see him, it really didn’t need Brian Cox as Adam Smith—his presence was a distraction, and the role was weirdly underwritten. And Midnight Never Comes, a staged reading of Val McDermid’s new play about the mysterious death of Christopher Marlowe was really interesting and SUPER gay! The highlight of the month for me, though, was Laura Benanti’s Nobody Cares, a sort of cabaret evening with original songs about the horrors of being a people pleaser. She’s SO immensely talented—a quadruple threat (the fourth being her superb comic timing)—and to see her in a tiny room (she was about 5 feet from me) for £15 was just BANANAS!
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