Grace Reading Series

You can listen to Jennifer Egan, Cristina Henriquez and me on Talk of the Nation here. (I'm on first, then Jennifer, then Cristina).

Oh, what do I have against the color pink? I'm really more of a lavender girl but pink will do in a pinch, those of you who know me well know it's true.

The callers had a lot of interesting things to say, people do seem to be thinking a lot about what kinds of books might actually be out there vs. what kinds of books are readily accessible, as well as what is going on with our culture and superficiality right now. Made me hopeful.

Happy weekend xxoooE

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 12:31 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hey everybody. I'll be on NPR's Talk of the Nation today with Jennifer Egan and Cristina Henríquez discussing This Is Not Chick Lit. It's on at noon on the west coast, 3pm here in New York. I'm nervous! Send me good radio vibes, my people. xxooE

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 09:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yes, bourbon and cigarettes. The girls love their bourbon.

In other news, I was lucky enough to catch a preview of Mike Daisey's new monologue, Truth, at Ars Nova. It's remarkable--I love how Mike interweaves cultural stories, here James Frey and JT Leroy, in with his own stories--he tells some major truth of his own here. This is my favorite of his shows so far and you know I've been a fan for a long time. Do not miss.

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 12:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I went to the premiere of the amazing and brilliant Jesus Camp last night and I had to cover my head with my jacket during part of it because the speaking in tongues, the terrifying the children with how Satanic they secretly are for being children, the freaky comandeering of emotion and spirituality into this apalling rhetoric of a punishing God and a constant war with the Devil, all of it I spent serious time with as a child. Even back in the mid-eighties, the Jesus warrior scary radical evangelicals were taking over small, normal churches, like the Presbyterian church in my town which had always been a sane, down-to-earth kind of place until then. I haven't seen this world in full force since then, since I was maybe 11 or 12, when I decided to get myself out of there and ended up in a preppy boarding school in Connecticut. Which was a terrifying place in its own way, but there Satan was just a bulimic heiress kleptomaniac from Greenwich who wouldn't stop playing her Crosby Stills and Nash.

I tried to get at in my novel Girly that this space the born-agains open up is extremely feminine and plugged in to the spiritual in a way that most Americans simply cannot access any other way--those elements, which we want so badly, have been excised from our culture. I'm not talking about the larger scope necessarily even: the 5000 years of patriarchy that has systematically repressed the feminine. I'm talking about even 30-odd years ago there was a Zeppelin concert you could go to, that kind of feminine, ecstatic space, and I'm not sure that's around so much anymore now that we have organized and pared down all of our arts to such a degree, now that their is so little space for anything but the blockbuster in all of our art forms.

Even 15 years ago you could go on a road trip and not see these mcmansions and townhomes and endless endless applebees everywhere--you could venture into wild space, it still existed in front of us and in our imagination. The filmmakers start Jesus Camp with shots of strip malls and that is exactly right--the evangelicals provide something ecstatic and messy and beyond all this ugliness. I'm sad to say don't think the Democrats have anything to compete with that.

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 08:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello everybody--it's fall and you know you want to get back to work, you lazy sundress creature you. If you need a little booster into the writing, if you want to wave bye to the self-torture and walk into the flow of your genius inspiration, I can help. Please join me for a one-day class in Soho from 2-5pm this SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23.

I'm calling it the Wild Story Party because we're going to plug right into the good stuff and bypass the self-doubt crap that is already boring me to death even though summer has only been over for 5 minutes.

It's open to all--you can find more information and sign right up via Paypal by clicking here. The real joy of this is: it's FREE if you sign up for a ten-week course with me (starting up again in October). Delicious.

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 11:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Meghan Cleary, shoe guru, dear friend of Grace (& yrs truly) and talented fiction writer who took my course this spring, is being all major in the Daily News this week. I am delighted that in a fun fashion article, even, she has retained her lessons from my writing workshops, which focus on integrating intuition and creativity while still managing to cross the street, etc.:

When you wear a platform, you are working every muscle in your body - from your abs to your right brain.

Meghan also brings up the revolution (girls, we are all feeling that eclipse of Sept 7, no?) I am happy to read this--I am sick of people suggesting that the chick lit writers have a death-grip on the serious footwear. Check her out:

The moral of the story is, rock your own revolution this fall. Whether your personal cause is world peace or just getting up the steps at the Bryant Park tents . . . platforms uncover women's inner fierceness. Can't the world use a little of that right now?

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 08:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Join us for the first in a 3-month festival of women cartoonists:

THE GRACE COMICS SHOWCASE:
Girl Stories, Teenage Diaries and Other Graphic Marvels of Womens Comics.
Wednesday 10/4, Mo Pitkins, 7pm, FREE!

We kick off The Showcase with none other than darling of Brooklyn-by-way-of-Seattle MEGAN KELSO, who will talk about "place and placement" in her just published graphic novel, THE SQUIRREL MOTHER (Fantagraphics).

Joining her is the New York-by-way-of-the-world darling of comics, GABRIELLE BELL, whose newest novel, LUCKY (Drawn and Quarterly), is so hotly anticipated we could not wait for her November pub date to show it off.

So come out to support our severely under-represented and supremely over-talented women of comics, and stay tuned for more details on the upcoming shows:

Nov. 1: Allison Cole (Never Ending Summer) and Lauren Weinstein (Girl Stories)

Dec. 6: Phoebe Gloeckner (Diary of a Teenage Girl) and FLY (Peops)

In addition to our reading series, please also mark your calendars for the Grace Comics Showcase Shindig ...

November 4th, Bluestockings Bookstore:

An open mike celebration of the intense, hilarious, visceral and sublime qualities that women bring to the medium of comics. Women cartoonists are invited to perform whatever they wish (readings? music? belly dancing?), and the readers who love them are invited to speak out in praise of their power and charms. Browse a great selection of books and comics by women cartoonists, and get books signed by some of the best artists working in comics.

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 11:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The divine Felicia Sullivan has hosted and posted a roundtable with Not Chick Lit authors over at her gorgeously relaunched literary magazine Small Spiral Notebook:

Samantha Hunt: The divide is not between men and women or even two camps of women writers. The divide is between art and marketing. In my opinion, the formulaic plots of most chick lit, while they might make a lot of money, do not make good art. There are a number of “how-to write a chick lit book” manuals. I want to read the kind of literature that couldn’t be written by following a how-to manual.

As for Jane Austen, she was not a chick lit writer. She was a writer dealing with the politics of her time: women as wampum and marriage, a business deal. She was activist on the part of romance.

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 11:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight: Monday Sept 11, at 7pm

I will be reading with This Is Not Chick Lit contributors Samantha Hunt and Binnie Kirshenbaum at the Readers Room series:

Mo Pitkins 34 Avenue A in the East Village

It's a sad day here in New York; I think that stories that get under the surface and tell the truth can be a balm for that. I hope you will join us.

xx Elizabeth

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 12:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

My writing classes are open for fall! Check out elizabethsworkshops.com for all details:

Here's a little testimonial:

“I've been singing Elizabeth's praises all over town. Her attentive instruction helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, and the exercises she gives are specially crafted to meet the needs that surface in each particular group of students. Her classes not only help you write, they transform how you think about writing. She doesn't let you wuss out of tackling the grisly, messy, hard stuff. The supportive environment, though never lacking in tactful ass-kicking, unbinds your creative mind and gets you out of the way of your writing.”

HERE'S THE SCOOP:

ELIZABETH'S FOUNDATION COURSE: become a happier, more productive writer in record time
in Soho. THURSDAYS Oct 5 - Dec 12 plus one date tbd, 7 - 9 p.m.

ELIZABETH'S NOVELLA COURSE: write 70 pages in 10 weeks
in Park Slope, Brooklyn. MONDAYS Oct 16 - Dec 11 plus one date tbd, 7 - 9 p.m.

For full information, course descriptions, how to apply, go here

The people say more things like this over at the testimonials page:

"Elizabeth is a gifted teacher--even after many years of Ivy-enhanced graduate school, one of the best I've had. She has a profound understanding of practical craft and wild creativity, and how they combine to produce resonant work. Better still, she is unusually adept at translating her knowledge into insight and information that students can use to grow their skills-nothing is abstract. I'd been battling writer's block for a long time and Elizabeth's classes really unlocked my creativity--a combination of her thoughtfully structured writing exercises (you *write* in her classes!), and the atmosphere in her living room, which is really a magical safe haven for creativity and truly constructive exchange.”

Posted by Elizabeth Merrick at 07:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)