Welcome to the post-publication era of A PLACE OF OUR OWN! The book is now available in stores on both sides of the Atlantic—and the Pacific, as my pal Brandon Tensley recently proved to me by sending a photo of APOOO lovingly displayed in The Bookshop Darlinghurst in Sydney, Australia.
It was fabulous to see so many people at the events in Washington, New York City, and Edinburgh, if a little frustrating that there was so little time to spend with anyone. In DC, I was shocked and delighted to see about half of the off our backs collective from my era. (I’m rounding up slightly since I’d seen another member in Athens, Georgia, just a few weeks before. Hi, Tricia!) It was also great to see pals from Slate (who were kind enough to arrange a quick pizza and beer gathering following the Politics & Prose event), and from Lammas and the old days in DC. The New York events were similarly splendid, with lots of media pals and Slatesters and my Brooklyn landlord. (My New York dentist even popped by P&T Knitwear, which is, let’s face it, the dream.)
After returning from the States, the Edinburgh event also felt like a blast from several eras of my past. Along with friends from high school and college—all of whom had zipped up to Scotland from the nation to the south, as did Sarah Savitt, publisher of Virago Press—amazing writers Ellen Galford (if you seek a great read, get your hands on a copy of The Dyke & The Dybbuk), Kate Charlesworth, and Mary Paulson-Ellis were also part of the fantastic intergenerational crowd. I am so grateful to Alison Bechdel for pausing en route from St Andrews to London to be my conversation partner. As I have said several times in interviews, Dykes to Watch Out For was a regular reminder of how important community spaces were to Mo and pals and a major inspiration for my book.
Please enjoy some photos from my travels.
With my editor, Madeline Lee; Emma Berry, who acquired the book for Seal Press; and my agent Maggie Cooper.
The gorgeous crowd at P&T Knitwear.
Posing with my sartorial hero, Andy Newman, in front of the jolly impressive P&T Knitwear sign board
With Alison Bechdel, another other sartorial hero, in Edinburgh
After all that I was WIPED OUT, but the exertions had just begun, because we are now in the process of moving. Our new place is just five minutes away from the current one, which is a pretty big contrast with our last relocation but still requires endless work, even when professional movers are involved. It has been very strange only to be at my desk for a couple of hours every day, but time spent away from one now will allow more comfortable (and less cluttered!) sitting at a different one later. (Also, if you are a journalist or book group or just about anyone else who would like to talk with me about A PLACE OF OUR OWN, please know that a little moving adventure won’t get in the way of my chatting with you!)
Before I go, let me share some interviews and a New York Times review! I also wrote a piece for TIME, explaining the importance of gay vacation destinations, and for Slate about the radical aesthetics of the DIY lesbian-feminist publications that sprung up in the 1970s.
PODCASTS AND RADIO INTERVIEWS Making Gay History, with Eric Marcus; Working, with Ronald Young Jr.; Slate Money Talks, with Felix Salmon; Outward, with Bryan Lowder and Jules Gill-Peterson; Slate Culture Gabfest, with Steven Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner; and Midday Edition, on KPBS in San Diego.
PRINT/ONLINE “Shuttered Places Don’t Have to Be So Tragic” in LGBTQ Nation; an interview in the great Paging Dr. Lesbian Substack newsletter; and “How Lesbians Found One Another, From the Softball Field to the Sex-Toy Shop,” a bonkers great review in the New York Times, by Anne Hull.
You can also catch video versions of the events I did at Politics & Prose, with Christina Cauterucci, and for the Toronto Public Library, with Jane Farrow.
Or maybe just check out the top-right quadrant of the Approval Matrix in the June 3-16 issue of New York magazine!
RECOMMENDATIONS: I know that debate was brutal, but the stuff that’s happening at the Supreme Court is even worse for the American people, as I am regularly reminded by the absolute FIRE that is the Amicus podcast, with best-in-the-biz legal commentators Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern and their excellent guests. Everything in the Opinionpalooza (which is to say the manufactured burst of opinions held until the end of the term) series has been fantastic, but if you want to sample the show, you can’t go wrong with the two episodes released at the end of last week, “SCOTUS and MAGA’s Shared Vision for Government Comes Into View” and “The Day SCOTUS Became President.”
LISTEN TO ME: What, I didn’t give you enough suggestions up above? If you are still CLAMORING for more, you may wish to listen to me talk with Ronald Young Jr. about my PKM stack. (IYKYK.)
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this newsletter and want to share it, or were forwarded this edition and want to subscribe, the link is https://buttondown.email/WhereAre. The archives are here. Info on ordering A PLACE OF OUR OWN can be found here. Reply to this email to share any thoughts or ideas.